
Class JiFiaM 
Book._-.-^_aa_ 



psychics: 
facts and theories. 



BY 
REV. MINOT j: SAVAGE. 

Author of '" The Irrepressible Conflict between Two World- Theo~ 
ric's," " The Religion of Evolution" " The Morals of Evo- 
lution" " Christianity the Science of Manhood" 
" The Modem Sphinx^" " Bluffiton? "Social 
Problems" etc. 



A beam in darkness : let it grow." 

Tennyson. 



BOSTON 

Geo. H. Ei.lis, 272 Congress Street 

1899 






• OX 

Copyrighted, 1893 

BY 

ARENA PUBLISHING CO. 
All rights reserved. 



TO 

WILLIAM JAMES, 

Doctor of Philosophy and Professor in Harvard University. 

Mt Dear Profess ok, — ■ 

After having worked with you 
on the problems that Psychical Research seeks to 
solve, I am glad and proud to associate your name 
with mine in this little volume. If all seekers'were 
as unprejudiced as you are, and the jury for the 
decision of these questions were as fair-minded, we 
might hope not only for siDeedy but for satisfactory 
results. 

With affectionate respects, 

M. J. SAVAGE. 
Dec. 28, 1892. 



PREFACE. 



This little volume is made up of certain papers 
which have appeared in Tlie Arena, and of one 
which was published in The Forum for December, 
1889. The latter is re-published here by consent. 

Since the appearance of these articles a hundred 
questions have been asked. I propose to take 
occasion of this preface to answer some of them a 
little more fully than is practicable by letter, and 
also to save myself the labor of writing the same 
things to so many different persons. 

No end of people write and ask if these phenom- 
ena may not be explained by this theory or that. 
It may not be out of the way to say that one who 
has been studying the matter for eighteen years, 
has probably considered, with some care, all the 
theories he could think of. He will be grateful, 
however, for anything, by way of suggestion, that 
is not already long familiar. 

A word, also, to those who send accounts of 
experiences. However interesting they may be, 
or, however conclusive to those immediately con- 



vi PREFACE. 

cerned, they are generally quite worthless as evi- 
dence to others. This, for two reasons : First, in 
most cases, no record is made at the time. So it is 
always open to an objector to say that the memory 
is unreliable. And, secondly, they are not accom- 
panied by any corroborative testimony of others. 
It cannot be too strongly, or too emphatically said 
that those who have these experiences should take 
pains to put their stories into evidential shape, so 
that they may help in the solution of the great 
problem. 

There is a class of objectors who say, " If my 
friends in the spirit world can come and com- 
municate at all, why do they not come directly to 
me ? Why must I go to a medium ? " For reply, I 
will ask another question. If a man can com- 
municate with me along a telegraph wire, why 
can he not as well send the message along a board 
fence ? I do not know. I only know that elec- 
tricity will work along a wire, but will not along 
a fence. Why can I not play the piano as well as 
Blind Tom, since I may claim, without immodesty, 
to be more than his intellectual equal ? I do not 
know. Perhaps it will be as well to recognize 
facts, and not deny them because we do not know 
why they are facts. 

Then there are seekers who seem to me quite 
as unreasonable as are some objectors. They will 
go to a psychic and ask to be put in communica- 



PREFACE. vii 

tionwith a particular friend inside of five minutes. 
Now, if my friends are alive in a spirit world, and 
even if they are sometimes able to communicate, 
is it quite reasonable for me to expect them to 
be hanging about the door of any particular 
" medium " I may take a notion to visit ? Per- 
haps they may have something else to do in the 
spirit world. I hope so, at any rate. If not, I 
should not like myself to live there. 

It ought also to be remembered that failures are 
quite as satisfactory, sometimes, as successes. If 
it is only a clever trick, then there need be no 
failures. If the psychic is honest, occasional fail- 
ures are to be expected. For all that an honest 
psychic can do is to sit and passively await results. 

One more caution needs to be pointed out. 
Some person, just interested, starts out and appears 
to think he is going to settle the matter in a week. 
Unless prepared for a long, serious and oftentimes 
disappointing study, people had better let it alone, 
and leave it to those better fitted for the arduous 
task. A person needs to be trained and experienced 
as an observer; he needs to know what is good 
evidence, and what is not ; he needs to know the 
possibilities and resources of trickery ; and then, 
perhaps, his conclusions may be worth something. 

People who propose to visit Boston or NewYork 
are constantly writing and asking me to give them 
the address of some " reliable medium." I almost 



viii PREFACE, 

always decline. For, first, I know very few 
advertising mediums to whom any first-corner can be 
sent. And, secondly, though I may have had some 
satisfactory experience, it does not at all follow 
that it can be repeated or duplicated, to order, in 
the case of another. Most of my own experi- 
ences have been in the presence of personal friends 
to whom I should not be at liberty to send a 
stranger. 

I am often asked if I am a Spiritualist. Some 
who hate spiritualism occasionally charge me with 
being one ; while some Spirtualists express the 
opinion that I am a sort of Nicodemus, who fears 
to avow his belief in daylight. I may as well 
answer that question here. No, in the popular 
acceptation of that word, I am not a Spiritualist. 
As the term is commonly used, it covers much 
which I do not believe, and much which is most 
distasteful to me. Should I now adopt that name, 
I should be seriously misrepresenting my position. 
Even though I should come at last to hold the 
theory that communication for the spirit world 
alone could explain my facts, even that would not 
make me what is generally understood as a Spirit- 
ualist. 

Spiritualists, for one thing, seem to think that 
their ism is a new religion. This claim seems 
to me to be hasty and absurd. The proof that the 
" dead " are alive and can communicate with the 



PBEFACE. ix 

living would only put certainty in the place of 
hope as to the destiny of man. It would not touch 
or change any one of the great essentials of my 
religious creed or life. I certainly hope that con- 
tinued existence may be demonstrated. But 
" Spiritualism " is a good deal more than that, and 
many other things besides that. So, as the term is 
now used, I cannot wear it. 

People often ask why, if there is anything in 
these so-called manifestations, they have waited all 
these ages and have not appeared before. There 
are stories of similar happenings as marking every 
age of history; but, as reported, they have been 
only occasional, and they have not attracted any 
serious study. Let us note the stages of evolution 
as having a possible bearing on this point. First* 
muscle ruled the world. Then came cunning, the 
lower form of brain power. Next, the intellect 
became recognized as king. After that, the moral 
ideal showed itself mightier than muscle or brain. 
To-day it is the strongest force on earth. No king- 
dares go to war without claiming, at least, that his 
cause is a righteous one. Now it is not meant that 
either of these has ruled the world alone, for they 
have overlapped each other, as have the advancing 
forms of life. And as heralding the advent of each 
new stage of progress, there have been tentative 
and sporadic manifestations of the next higher, 
while still the lower was dominant. Is it not then 



x PREFACE. 

in line with all that has gone before, that the next 
step should be a larger and higher xnanif estation of 
the spiritual ? And, in this case, are not the ten- 
tative and sporadic manifestations reported from 
the past just what might have been expected? 
" First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in the ear." " That was not first which is spirit- 
ual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that 
which is spiritual." 

With these suggestions, I offer the reader the 
following facts and some discussion as to theories. 
If the facts force us to the reasonable conclusion 
that 

" There is no death, what seems so is transition," 

why should any one shrink from having proved 
that which all men hope ? I hesitate, as yet, to 
say that there can be no other explanation ; but I 
frankly admit that I can now see no other which 
seems to me adequate to account for all the facts. 
If any one can find another explanation, I am ready 
~to accept it. For what any reasonable man wishes 
is only the truth. 

M. J. Savage. 
Boston, Dec. 26, '92. 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEOKIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

I am to tell some stories ; others are to 
explain them — if they can. Not that I mean 
to shirk any responsibility. I am ready with 
my opinions as to what seems to me reasonable 
in the way of theory, and what unreasonable, 
only I do not propose to dogmatize ; and I am 
ready to listen to the suggested explanations 
of anybody else. 

The one thing I know about these stories is 
that they are true, I say this advisedly and 
weighing my words. If in the case of any one 
of them, I only think or believe it is true, I 
shall say so ; but nearly all of them I know to 
he true — know it in the same sense in which I 



6 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

use the word of that which is scientifically 
demonstrated. 

These stories will lead us into the realm of 
the supernormal. I do not say supernatural, 
because I do not believe in any supernatural. 
In my way of looking at the universe, I regard 
all that is as natural. If, for example, there 
are invisible beings who can take part in the 
events of our lives, their being invisible does 
not make them either unnatural or super- 
natural. A blind man would have no right to 
regard other people as supernatural merely 
because he could not see them. Science makes 
it purely rational for us to believe in the pos- 
sibility of the existence and activity of persons 
we cannot see. Our senses are limited ; so it 
is only a question of fact and evidence. But 
certain things may transcend the range of our 
ordinary or normal experience. For clearness 
of thought, then, let us call these super- 
normal. 

If the claim is made that some supernormal 
thing has occurred, it is only reasonable that 



PSYCHICS: FACTS A&D THEORIES. ? 

people should demand adequate proof. The 
chances are against it, by as much as the 
normal is more common than the supernormal. 
If some one tells us that he has just seen on 
the street a dark-haired man dressed in gray, 
we do not ask for evidence of such a fact ; but 
if he tells us that, while he was looking at him, 
he faded out of sight and disappeared, we 
naturally and rightly doubt the reality of his 
experience. We know that people can be mis- 
taken ; we know that they sometimes lie ; we 
know that, in certain conditions of the brain, 
men think they see when no objective reality 
corresponds with their vision. The probabil- 
ities, then, are in favor of some one of these 
explanations. 

But that a real, conscious, intelligent being 
may exist and not be visible to normal eyes ; 
that such a being may be seen at one time by 
a particular person and not at another ; that 
he may be seen by one person and not by 
others, — there is nothing in all this that con- 
travenes scientific possibility. It is not as if a 



8 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

man should tell us that he knew of a country 
where water did not freeze at 32 ° Fahrenheit. 
The scientifically impossible is one thing ; while 
the improbable, the uncommon, or the super- 
normal, is quite another thing. The super- 
normal may be true. While, then, the prob- 
abilities are against it, the proof may be such 
as to render it credible. Indeed, it is conceiv- 
able that the proof may become so strong as to 
make incredulity absurd and unscientific. The 
attitude of caution is rational ; but the attitude 
of those who " know " a thing cannot be true, 
merely because it is unusual, or because it does 
not fit into the theory of things which they 
happen to hold — this is irrational. 

What looks like proof of certain supernormal 
happenings has been accumulating so rapidly 
during the last few years, that public attention 
has been turned in this direction as never 
before. Psychic investigation is becoming 
" respectable." It will be fortunate for it if it 
does not become a fashionable fad for those 
who want a new sensation. It is curious, and 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. \t 

would be ludicrous were it not sad, to watch 
the progress of these things. " You ought to 
be thankful to nie ? " said John Weiss, one 
morning, as I met him on Washington Street, 
"for I have been killed to make room for you." 
Yes, brave men were professionally and socially 
killed, to make our religious liberty possible. 
And now even the "Orthodox" get great credit 
for being " liberal," and the blood-bought lib- 
erty is the hobby of snobs. Always some 
Winkelreid makes way for liberty at the price 
of fatal thrusts of spears. 

A world-famous man, Church of England 
clergyman and scientist in one, said to me one 
day, "I do not talk about my psychic experi- 
ences and knowledge with everybody. I used 
to think all who had anything to do with these 
things were fools ; and I do not enjoy being 
called a fool." But now the danger is that the 
society fools will go to dabbling in the matter. 
Said another man to me, a scholar known on 
two continents, " Suppose you and I should 
come to believe, it would only be a couple more 



10 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

cranks!" But it begins to look as though 
the " cranks" might get to be in the majority, 
when a famous German philosopher can say 
that " The man who any longer denies clair- 
voyance does not show that he is prejudiced ; 
he only shows that he is ignorant." 

So much by way of preface to my stories. 
It seems to me that all these points, at least, 
ought to be kept in mind by one who reads 
them and seriously tries to think out what they 
may mean. Now to the stories themselves. 

I. Let me begin by telling about some rap- 
pings. Do these ever occur except in cases 
where they are purposely produced ? Are they 
always a trick? A vast amount of ingenuity 
has been expended by those who have thought 
they could explain these things as the work of 
toe joints or other anatomical peculiarities. 
It will be something to find out that genuine 
raps do occur, whatever theory may be adopted 
in explanation of them. 

I know a regular physician living not a 
thousand miles from Boston. His wife, I 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 11 

should call a psychic, though she does not call 
herself so. Neither she nor her husband has 
ever had anything to do with spiritualism, nor 
are they believers. Where they formerly lived 
they were continually troubled by strange and 
unaccountable happenings ; but though they 
moved to their present residence, the happen- 
ings — with one important exception — have not 
ceased. No attempt has been made to reduce 
these happenings to order, or to find out 
whether there is any discoverable intelligence 
connected with them. The doctor vaguely 
holds the opinion that they indicate some ab- 
normal nervous condition on the part of his 
wife. So far the whole matter has been treated 
from that point of view. But what is it that 
happens? Sometimes, for two hours on a 
stretch, the doctor and his wife are kept wide 
awake at night by loud rappings on the head- 
board of their bed. In accordance with his 
nervous theory, the doctor will hold his wife 
with one arm, while the hand of the other arm 
is pressed against the headboard, in the attempt 



12 PS Y CHICS : FACTS A ND THEORIES . 

thus to put an end to the disturbance. Said 
the doctor to me one day, " If anybody thinks 
these rappings are not genuine, I should like 
to have him go through some of my experi- 
ences." 

He and his wife will be sitting by the draw- 
ing-room table of an evening. They will be 
conscious of a stream of cold air passing by 
them, — an accompaniment of psychic facts 
well known to investigators, — and then the 
" trouble " will begin. Sometimes it is only 
raps. At other times they will hear a noise on 
the floor of the room above, and will think 
their boy has fallen out of bed; but on going 
up to see, they find him quietly asleep. Some- 
times there will be a loud crash in the corner 
of the room over the furnace register, as though 
a basket of crockery had been thrown down 
and broken. They occupy the house alone, 
and have no other way of explaining these 
unpleasant facts than the one alluded to above. 

I give this case because of the undoubted oc- 
currence of these things in the house of one 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 13 

who is not a believer nor even an investigator. 
There is no expectancy or invitation of them, 
or any superstitious attitude of mind towards 
them. They are, in this case, plain, bold, 
apparent facts, as real as is breakfast or supper, 
or the existence of a brick in the sidewalk. 

The " one important exception " referred 
to above is this : In the house they formerly 
occupied, the doctor's wife sometimes saw the 
fio-ure of a woman. Others were said to have 
seen it also. It was never visible to the doctor. 
There is the story of a tragic death which con- 
nects this woman with this particular house. 
Those who believe in haunted houses would 
thus be able to explain why this figure is never 
seen in the house at present occupied by the 
doctor's family. 

Here then are raps not to be explained as 
the conscious, purposed work of any visible 
person ; nor can they be explained as the result 
of the shrinking of boards, as the work of rats 
or mice, or in any ordinary way. Starting 
with facts like these, many persons have sup- 



14 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

posed themselves to get into communication 
with invisible intelligences who had taken these 
ways of attracting attention. Nothing of this 
sort has been even attempted here. I simply 
set forth the facts and the reality of the raps. 

II. I will now tell a brief story of one of my 
own experiences in this line. 

Until within the past year or two there lived 
in New York city a lady who, when a girl, had 
been somewhat known as a "medium." But 
for twenty or thirty years she led a quiet home- 
life with her husband, a well-known business- 
man. But intimates in the house told stories 
of remarkable occurrences. For example, a 
friend of this family has told me how, when at 
breakfast, after having spent the night there, 
raps would come on the table ; and by means 
of them, how long and pleasant conversations 
would be held with those who once had walked 
the earth, but now were in the unseen. This 
is his belief. 

Having occasion to pass through New York, 
this friend, above referred to, gave me a letter 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 15 

of introduction, saying he knew I would be 
welcomed if I called at the house of this lady. 
I had never seen her, nor she me, but one 
morning I presented myself with my letter. I 
was shown into the back parlor. Carpenters 
were at work on a conservatory opening out 
of this room where the lady had received me. 
They made more or less noise, but not enough 
to interfere with our conversation. Soon I be- 
gan to hear raps, apparently on the floor, and 
then in different parts of the room. On this, 
the lady remarked, simply, " Evidently there is 
some one here who wishes to communicate with 
you. Let us go into the front parlor, where it 
will be quieter." This we did, the raps follow- 
ing us, or rather beginning again as soon 
as we were seated. At her suggestion I then 
took pencil and paper (which I happened to 
have in my bag), and sat at one side of a 
marble-top table, while she sat at the other 
side in a rocker and some distance away. Then 
she said, "As one way of getting at the 
matter, suppose you do this : You know what 



16 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

friends you have in the spirit world. Write 
now a list of names — any names you please, 
real or fictitious, only among them somewhere 
include the names of some friends in the spirit 
world who, you think, might like to communi- 
cate with you, if such a thing were possible." 
I then began. I held a paper so that she 
could not possibly have seen what I wrote, 
even though she had not been so far away. I 
took special pains that no movement or facial 
expression should betray me. Meantime she 
sat quietly rocking and talking. As I wrote, 
perhaps at the eighth or tenth name, I began 
to write the name of a lady friend who had 
not been long dead. I had hardly written the 
first letter before there came three loud, dis- 
tinct raps. Then my hostess said, " This 
friend of yours, of course, knows where she 
died. Write now a list of places, including in 
it the place of her death, and see if she will 
recognize it." This I did, beginning with 
Vienna, and so on with any that occurred to 
me. Again, I had hardly begun to write the 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEOBIJSS. 17 

real name, when once more came the three 
raps. And so on, concerning other matters. 
I speak of these only as specimens. 

Now, I cannot say that in this particular 
case the raps were not caused by the toe joints 
of the lady. The thing that puzzles me, in 
this theory, is as to how the toe joints happened 
to know the name of my friend, where she died, 
etc., which facts the lady herself did not know, 
and never had known. 

Certain theories, as explanations of certain 
facts, are already regarded as demonstrated by 
those familiar with the results of psychic inves- 
tigation. Among these are hypnotism, clair- 
voyance, telepathy, and the agency of the sub- 
conscious self as active about matters with 
which the conscious self is not familiar. Can 
the simplest, genuine rap be explained as com- 
ing under either of these? No one has the 
slightest idea how, and as yet there is nothing 
in this direction that, even by courtesy, can be 
called a theory ; but it may be possible that 

these raps are produced by psvchic power. If 

2 



18 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

so, as in Case I., the psychic herself does not 
know even that she does it, mnch less how. 
Are they the work of the sub-conscious self ? 
No sub-conscious self has ever claimed to do it. 
And if so, from what source does this sub- 
conscious self, as in Case II., obtain a knowl- 
edge of facts the psychic never knew ? To ex- 
plain these cases in accordance with any yet 
accepted theories, mind-reading must also be 
introduced. This New York lady must have 
been able, not only to produce the raps, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, but also to read my 
mind and tell me things she never knew before. 
But these things, if they do no more, reveal 
such an extension of mental power as to lead 
us into a world vastly unlike that which is rec- 
ognized by ordinary scientific theories ; and it 
may be well for us to be on our guard lest we 
invent theories more decidedly supernormal 
than the facts we seek to explain. 

IV. My next story goes far beyond any of 
these, and, — well, I will ask the reader to decide 
as to whether there is any help in hypnotism 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 19 

or clairvoyance or mind-reading, or any of the 
selves of the psychic, conscious, or sub-con- 
scious. 

Early on Friday morning, Jan. 18, 1884, the 
steamer " City of Columbus," en route from 
Boston to Savannah, was wrecked on the rocks 
off Gay Head, the southwestern point of 
Martha's Vineyard. Among the passengers 
was an elderly widow, the sister-in-law of one 
of my friends, and the mother of another. 

This lady, Mrs. K., and her sister, Mrs. B., 
had both been interested in psychic investiga- 
tion, and had held sittings with a psychic whom 
I will call Mrs. E. Mrs. B. was in poor health, 
and was visited regularly for treatment on 
every Monday by the psychic, Mrs.* E. On 
occasion of these professional visits, Mrs. B. 
and her sister, Mrs. K., would frequently have 
a sitting. This Mrs. E., the psychic, had been 
known to all the parties concerned for many 
years, and was held in the highest respect. 
She lived in a town fifteen or twenty miles 
from Boston. This, then, was the situation of 



20 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

affairs when the wreck of the steamer took 
place. 

The papers of Friday evening, January 18, 
of course contained accounts of the disaster. 
On Saturday, January 19, Dr. K., my friend, 
the son of Mrs. K., hastened down to the beach 
in search of the body of his mother. No trace 
whatever was discovered. He became satisfied 
that she was among the lost, but was not able 
to find the body. Saturday night he returned 
to the city. Sunday passed by. On Monday 
morning, the 21st, Mrs. E. came from her coun- 
try home to give the customary treatment to 
her patient, Mrs. B. Dr. K. called on his aunt 
while Mrs. E. was there, and they decided to 
have a sitting, to see if there would come to 
them anything that even purported to be news 
from the missing mother and sister. Imme- 
diately Mrs. K. claimed to be present ; and 
along with many other matters, she told them 
three separate and distinct things which, if 
true, it was utterly impossible for either of 
them to have known. 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEOBIJES. 21 

1. She told thein that, after the steamer had 
sailed, she had been able to exchange her in- 
side stateroom for an outside one. All that 
any of them knew, was that she had been 
obliged to take an inside room, and that she 
did not want it. 

2. She told them that she played whist with 
some friends in the steamer saloon during the 
evening ; and she further told them the names 
of the ones who had made up the table. 

3. Then came the startling and utterly un- 
expected statement, — "I do not want you to 
think of me as having been drowned. I was 
not drowned. When the alarm came, I was in 
my berth. Being frightened, I jumped up, 
and rushed out of the stateroom. In the pas- 
sage-way, I was suddenly struck a blow on my 
head, and instantly it was over. So do not 
think of me as having gone through the 
process of drowning." Then she went on to 
speak of the friends she had found, and who 
were with her. This latter, of course, could 
net be verified. But the other things could 



22 PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

be. It was learned, through survivors, that 
the matter of the stateroom and the whist, even 
to the partners, was precisely as had been 
stated. But how to verify the other statement, 
particularly as the body had not been dis- 
covered ? 

All this was on Monday, the 21st. On 
Tuesday, the 22d, the doctor and a friend 
went again to the beach. After a prolonged 
search among the bodies that had been recov- 
ered, they were able to identify that of the 
mother. And they found the right side of 
the head all crushed in by a blow. 

The impression made on the doctor, at the 
sitting on Monday, was that he had been talk- 
ing with his mother. The psychic, Mrs. E., is 
not a clairvoyant, and there were many things 
connected with the sitting that made the strong 
impression of the mother's present personality. 
In order to have obtained all these facts,, 
related under numbers 1, 2, and 3, the psychic 
would have had to be, not only clairvoyant, but 
to have gotten into mental relations with several 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. '23 

different people at the same time. The read- 
ing of several different minds at once, and also 
clairvoyant seeing, not only of the bruised 
body, but of facts that took place on the 
Friday previous (this being Monday), — all 
these multiplex and diverse operations, going 
on simultaneously, make up a problem that the 
most ardent advocate of telepathy, as a solvent 
of psychic facts, would hardly regard as reason- 
ably coming within its scope. 

Let us look at it clearly. Telepathy deals 
only with occurrences taking place at the time. 
I do not know of a case where clairvoyance is 
even claimed to see what were once facts, but 
which no longer exist. Then there must have 
been simultaneous communication with several 
minds. This, I think, is not even claimed as 
j>ossible by anybody. Then let it be remem- 
bered that Mrs. E. is not conscious of pos- 
sessing either telepathic or clairvoyant power. 
Such is the problem. 

I express no opinion of my own. I only say 
that the doctor, my friend, is an educated, 



24 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

level-headed, noble man. He felt sure that he 
detected undoubted tokens of his mother's 
presence. If such a thing is ever possible, 
surely this is the explanation most simple 
and natural 

V. The only other case I shall be able to 
find room for in this chapter is a genuine ghost 
story, all the better for my purpose because it 
is simple and clear cut in every particular. It 
is perfectly authentic, and true beyond any 
sort of question. 

The lady who furnishes me the facts is a 
parishioner, and a distant connection. In the 
year 1859, Mrs. S. and Mrs. C. were living in 
two different towns in the State of Maine. 
Both were Methodists, and the husband of 
Mrs. C. was a clergyman of that denomination. 
My brother, at one time, was well acquainted 
with him, and the family was related to my 
brother's wife. At this time, in 1859, Mrs. C. 
was ill with dropsy, and her sister, Mrs. S., was 
visiting her. They both well knew that Mrs. 
C. could not live for long, and that this was to 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 25 

be their last meeting in the body. One day 
they were speaking of the then new and 
strange belief of spiritualism, when Mrs. C. 
said, " Mary, if it is true, and it is a possible 
thing, I will come to yon after my death." 

The day following, Mrs. S. returned to her 
home, in another part of the state. Some 
weeks passed by; it was now October 4. Mr. 
S. was away from home, and Mrs. S. was alone 
with her two daughters. No one was on the 
premises except a farm-hand, who slept in 
another part of the house. As is the common 
custom in these country towns in Maine, the 
daughters had gone to bed early, and were 
asleep. They were both awakened out of their 
sleep by their mother, who came and told them 
that their Aunt Melinda was dead, for she had 
just seen her standing in the doorway, in her 
nightdress. They noted the time, and it was 
9.50 p.m. 

In those days there were no telegraphs. 
The mails, even, were very irregular, and the 
T/Ost-oflice was four miles away. They had 



26 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

heard nothing to make them think that their 
aunt was any nearer death than she had been 
for a long time. Three days after, i. e., on 
October 7, news came that Mrs. C. had passed 
away on the evening of October 4, after being 
dressed for bed. At 9.30 they had left her, 
for a few moments, sitting comfortably in her 
chair. At 10 they returned and found her 
dead, and they said she looked as though she 
had been dead for some minutes. Of course, 
when they sent this news, they knew nothing 
of the fact that, by some subtle express, they 
had been anticipated by at least three days. 

I am well aware of the policy of the Psychical 
Society, and that the attempt is made to explain 
such appearances by supposing that the dying 
friend is able telepathically to impress, not ideas 
only, but images on the minds of distant friends, 
so producing the effect of an objective vision. 
Indeed, I am in sympathy with this attitude on 
the part of the society. Let telepathy and all 
other well-established theories be strained to 
the utmost. We will go further for explana- 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 21 

tions only when we have to. But there are 
some who think that these theories are already 
beino; overweighted. No matter. Let them 
be. For if they break down at last, and compel 
us to go further, some other theory will come as 
a necessity ; and the proof at last will seem all 
the more forcible because the conclusion was 
not jumped at, but came when all other explana- 
tions had proven futile. 

Here, then, I stop for the present. Not a 
third of my authentic cases have been even 
alluded to. Many of the most striking still 
remain ; for I wished to begin as near the com- 
monplace as possible, and so advance from the 
less to the more complex and difficult. If it 
shall seem best, some more of my stories may 
be told later on. 

Xote. — I have not thought best to give names, but I am in 
possession of names, dates, facts of every kind, sufficient to 
make these what would be called legal evidence in a court of 
justice. 



23 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 



CHAPTER II. 

Op the truth of what I shall here relate, I 
am as certain as I am of any fact in my own 
personal history. I select typical specimens 
out of a large number. Many, and some of 
them of the most remarkable kind, cannot yet 
be told, because they are so very personal in 
their nature; and yet, to those who know these 
they are naturally the most striking of all. 

The first case, which I shall now detail, is so 
profusely authenticated that it would be ac- 
cepted as absolutely conclusive evidence, even 
in a matter of life and death, in any court in 
Christendom. I shall tell the story in my own 
words, but I have in my possession eight separ- 
ate accounts of eight living witnesses. To these 
accounts are attached the autograph signatures 
of their authors, and these are witnessed to by 
others who know them. With two of the 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 29 

principal ones I am personally acquainted, and 
can vouch for both their intelligence and truth- 
fulness. I shall not give the real names, for 
all these people are still living, and investigators 
more zealous than wise might subject them to 
personal annoyance. 

The events now to be narrated occurred in 
the year 1864, and in a town not forty miles 
from Boston. The persons chiefly concerned 
are these : A Mrs. C, who had been three times 
married ; a son, a young man, child of the first 
marriage (I shall speak of him by his first 
name, Charles) ; two sons by the second mar- 
riage, William and Joshua, aged respectively 
sixteen and thirteen ; and Mrs. D., the one who 
played the principal part, and who tells the 
principal story. All these, together with the 
other witnesses, are still living, with the excep- 
tion of the two boys William and Joshua, 
around whose fate the story revolves. 

On March 25, 1864, Mrs. C. went into Bos- 
ton for the day. Her son William had been at 
work in a wholesale drug house in Boston, but 



30 PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

for some time preceding this date had been 
engaged with a similar firm in Portland, Me., 
during the refitting of the Boston store, which 
had been burned. On this day, while his 
mother was absent, he came back from Port- 
land, and was, to return to his former position 
on the following Monday. This day, March 
25, was a Friday. He reached home about two 
o'clock p.m. Not finding his mother, he, 
with his brother Joshua, started for the station, 
expecting to meet her as she came out on the 
five o'clock train. But the mother was de- 
layed, and did not reach home till two hours 
later. She was met by a friend of the boys, 
who told her that William had got home from 
Portland. But when she reached the house 
the boys were not there. The last trace that 
was ever found of them alive was the fact that 
they had started for the station to meet their 
mother on the arrival of the five o'clock train. 
At first the mother consoled herself by think- 
ing that they must have met some friends, and 
had been detained by them. But when bed- 



PSY CHICS : FA CTS AND THEORIES. 3 1 

time came and they did not return, she became 
very anxious, and passed a sleepless night. 
At this time her husband, the stepfather to 
the boys, was in the army, and she had to rely 
on her own resources. 

The next morning she and the elder son, 
Charles, began to make inquiries. They not 
only searched the town, but drove to neighbor- 
ing towns, searching every place to which it 
seemed at all likely that they might have gone. 
Recruiting camps were visited, as it was 
thought possible that curiosity might have led 
them on some such expedition. But about five 
r.M. (this being Saturday) they returned, and 
reported to the neighbors that no trace had been 
found. The neighbors then offered their ser- 
vices, and started out in various directions, as 
their own ideas might guide them. But all 
efforts proved in vain. Then they came to 
the mother, and asked if she had anything else 
to suggest. She replied that, if her husband 
were at home, she should have the pond 
searched, for she felt sure they must be some- 



32 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

where where they could not get home, or they 
would not have stayed away so long. 

But everybody thought it most unlikely 
that they were in the pond, and this for two 
reasons. In the first place, they were timid 
about being on the water ; and in the second 
place, being in March, it was too cold for them 
to think of any such thing as swimming or 
rowing. On Sunday evening, however, to 
satisfy the mother, and in order that nothing 
might be left untried, they began to search the 
pond, and kept on until the darkness compelled 
them to postpone their labors. On Monday 
morning early, the engine and church bells 
were rung, and the citizens were called together 
to organize a systematic search of the pond. 
Grappling irons were used, and cannon were 
fired over all the places where it seemed pos- 
sible that the bodies might be. Still no trace 
was discovered. 

Such was the situation of affairs when, at 
about ten o'clock in the forenoon, Mrs. D., one 
of the neighbors, called on Mrs. C, the mother 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 33 

of the boys, to show her sympathy and ask 
if there was anything she could do. By this 
time every known resource had been exhausted. 
So, as a last resort, the mother asked Mrs. D. 
if she would not go to Boston and consult a 
medium. It is important here to note that she 
was not a spiritualist, but was a believer in 
Evangelical Christianity, and had never had 
anything to do with spiritualism. She turned 
to this as a last desperate resource, because in 
despair of help from any other quarter. 

It must also be noted that Mrs. D. had no 
faith in it, and had never consulted a medium 
in all her life. So, although she had offered 
her services as being willing to do anything she 
could, she tried to beg off from this, as being 
both a disagreeable and hopeless errand. But 
as Mrs. C. urged it so strongly, and said she 
wished her, and no one else, to go, she at last 
and most reluctantly consented. 

She reached Boston at twelve o'clock noon. 

Meantime, and with more efficient grappling 

irons, the search of the pond was continued, 

3 



84 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

but with no results. On arriving in town, and 
not knowing which way to turn, since she was 
not acquainted with a single medium, she went 
(as some one had advised her to do) to the 
office of the Banner of Light, the spiritualist 
paper. They directed her to a place near Court 
Street. The medium here was engaged, and 
could not see her. But the man who answered 
the door sent her to another one in Dix Place. 
This one also was engaged, and could not see 
her. But here they told her to go to a Mrs. Y. 
on Washington Street near Common Street. 
By this time it was about three o'clock. A 
sitter was just leaving, and Mrs. Y. said she 
was too tired to give any more sittings that 
day. But when she found that her visitor was 
from out of town, and that the next day would 
be too late, she said that if she would wait long 
enough for her to take a little rest, she would see 
what she could do. Nothing was said that could 
give her the slightest clue. Indeed, nothing 
could be said, for no one had a clue, and it 
was a clue they all were in search of. It is 



PSTCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 35 

important here to note another thing. Up 
to this time Mrs. Y., the medium, had never 
been in the town where the boys resided. 

When the medium came again into the 
room, she walked directly to the fireplace and 
stood with her back to Mrs. D. Then, before 
either of them had spoken a word, by way of 
preliminary, she said, " They went east before 
they went west." The railroad station is east 
from the house in which they lived, and the 
pond is west. Then she added, " They saw 
the fire, and so went to the water." It was 
afterwards found that some men were burning 
brush near the lake. So knowing it would be 
some time before the next train, it is supposed 
that, boylike, they were attracted by the fire, 
and went to see what was going on. The 
medium then went on to speak of a boathouse 
with a hole in its side. This was not mind- 
reading, because Mrs. D. knew nothing of 
there being any boathouse or boat. She con- 
tinued and described a boat, — " a narrow boat, 
painted black." Then she cried out, " Oh, 



36 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

dear, it was never intended that more than one 
person should get into it at a time ! " She 
told how the boys went through the hole in the 
side of the boathouse, found the boat, got into 
it, and pulled out onto the water. She said 
they had gone but a very little way before the 
younger brother fell overboard ; then the older 
one, in trying to save him, also fell into the 
water. Then she added, " The place where 
they are is muddy, and they could not come to 
the surface. Why," said she, " it is not the 
main lake where they are, but the shallow part 
which connects with the main lake, and they 
are so near the shore that if it were not this 
time of the year [March], you could almost 
walk in and pick them up." She spoke of the 
citizens' interest in seeking for them, but said, 
" They will not find them ; they go too far 
from the shore. They [the bodies] are on the 
left of the boathouse, a few feet from the land." 

Mrs. D. then said, " If they are in the water, 
they will be found before I can reach home." 

The medium replied, " No, they will not be 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 37 

found before you get there ; you will have to 
go and tell them where I say they are, and 
then they will be found within five minutes 
after you reach the lake." Then she made 
Mrs. D. promise to go with them to the lake, 
and added, " They are very near together. 
After finding one, you will quickly find the 
others' 

In spite of all that Mrs. Y. had said, Mrs. 
D. was still as incredulous as before. But 
she had undertaken to see it through, and so 
started for home. She arrived at five o'clock. 
By this time it was known on what sort of 
errand she had gone to Boston, and a crowd 
of the curious and interested was at the station. 
As she stepped on to the platform, a gentleman 
asked, "What did the medium tell you?" She 
replied with the question, "Haven't you found 
them yet ? " When they said they had not, she 
delivered her message. Immediately they took 
a carriage and started for the lake. As they 
came in sight of the place, Mrs. D. recognized 
the boathouse, with the hole in the side, as the 



38 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

medium had described it. The " narrow boat 
painted black " had also been found drifting in 
another part of the lake. So by this time, Mrs. 
D. began to wonder if the rest might not be 
true. But no one in the crowd seemed to have 
any confidence in the medium's statements. 
They felt that they had thoroughly searched 
the pond, and that the matter was settled. 
But they went on, and prepared to follow 
Mrs. D.'s directions. 

She stood on the shore while two boats put 
off in which were men with their grappling 
irons. In one boat was the elder brother, or 
half-brother, of the missing boys. He was 
holding one of the grappling irons ; and after 
only three or four strokes of the oars, he ex- 
claimed, " I have hold of something ! " The 
boat was stopped, and he at once brought to 
the surface the body of the older boy, William. 
In a few minutes more, and close to the same 
place, the body of the other boy, Joshua, was 
found. The place was shallow and muddy, as 
the medium had said ; and, held by the mud, 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 39 

the bodies had not risen to the surface, as 
otherwise they might have done. The bodies 
were now placed together in a carriage, and 
before six o'clock they were in their mother's 
house. 

At the close of the Boston interview, Mrs. 
D. asked the medium from what source she got 
her claimed information, and she said, " The 
boys' father told me." The boys' father was 
the second husband of Mrs. C, and had been 
" dead " for several years, while the mother 
was then living with her third husband. 

Here, then, is the story. I have in my pos- 
session the account as given by Mrs. D., who 
is still living and is a personal acquaintance. 
I have the account of her daughter, who well 
remembers it all. I have also the account of 
Mrs. C, the mother ; of Mr. C, the father-in- 
law ; of the elder brother, Charles ; of the 
sister of Mrs. D. ; of the lady who was at that 
time postmistress of the town ; of a man who 
came into Boston after grappling irons with 
which to search the lake ; and also of two or 



40 PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

three other persons whose names, if given, 
would be recognized as connected with one 
of the distinguished men in American history. 

One other item is of sufficient interest to 
make it worth mentioning. The father-in-law 
of the boys tells that one day, after his return 
from the army, the medium, Mrs. Y., visited 
the town for the first time in her life, and came 
to his house. She wished to visit the place 
where the bodies of the boys were found. 
When within a short distance of the lake, she 
asked him to fall back. She then became en- 
tranced ; and picking up a stone, she stood 
with her eyes closed and back to the water. 
Then she threw the stone over her head, and 
landed it in the precise place from which the 
bodies were taken. 

Mr. C, as well as his wife, was an Evan- 
gelical in his creed, and had never had any- 
thing to do with mediums. 

Of the truth of these occurrences, as thus 
related, there can be no rational doubt. As an 
explanation, telepathy is excluded, for nobody 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 41 

living was aware of the facts. Clairvoyance 
seems to be excluded, for Mrs. D. did not tell 
the medium where she was from nor what she 
wanted to find out, and clairvoyance requires 
that the mind should be directed or sent on 
some definite errand to some particular place. 
What, then, is left ? Will the reader decide ? 
The incidents I am next to relate occurred 
two years ago this winter. The place is a 
large city in a neighboring state. The three 
persons concerned are a doctor, his wife, and 
one of his patients. The story, as I tell it, was 
given me by the wife. She was an old school 
friend of some of my personal friends, who 
hold her in the highest esteem. Her husband 
I have never seen ; but a connection of mine 
was once a patient of his, and speaks of him 
always with enthusiastic admiration, both as a 
man and a physician. He is a doctor of the 
old school, inclined to be a sceptic, and had 
never had anything whatever to do with me- 
diums. He is not visionary, and this was his 
first experience out of the normal. 



42 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

On a winter night, then, two years ago, he 
was sound asleep. Being very weary, and in 
order that he might sleep as late as possible, 
the green holland shade of his own window was 
down to the bottom, and there was no way by 
which any light could penetrate his room. His 
wife was asleep in a room adjoining, with a 
door open between. She was waked out of a 
sound sleep by hearing him call her name. 
She opened her eyes, and saw his room flooded 
with a soft, yet intense yellowish light. She 
called, and said, "What is that light?" He 
replied, " I don't know ; come in and see ! " 
She then went into his room, and saw that it 
was full of this light. They lighted the gas, 
but the other light was so much stronger that 
the gas flame seemed lost in it. They looked 
at their watches, and it was about five full 
minutes before it had faded away. During 
this time he explained to her what had occurred. 
He said he was wakened by a strong light 
shining directly into his face. At the same 
time, on opening his eyes, he saw the figure of 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD TREOBIES. 43 

a woman standing at the foot of his bed. His 
first thought was that his wife had come in and 
lighted the gas, as he knew she intended rising 
to take an early train in order to visit his 
mother, who was ill. Being- very tired and 
needing sleep, he was about to reproach her for 
needlessly waking him ; when he saw that the 
figure, from which now all the light seemed to 
proceed, was not his wife. By this time he was 
broad awake, and sat upright in bed staring at 
the figure. He noticed that it was a woman in a 
white garment ; and looking sharply, he recog- 
nized it, as he thought, as one of his patients 
who was very ill. Then he realized that this 
could not be so, and that if any one was in the 
room, it must be an intruder who had no right 
to be there. TVith the vague thought of a 
possible burglar thus disguisod, he sprang out 
of bed and grasped his revolver, which he was 
accustomed to have near at hand. This brought 
him face to face with the figure not three feet 
away. He now saw every detail of dress, com- 
plexion, and feature, and for the first time 



44 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

recognized the fact that it was not a being of 
flesh and blood. Then it was that, in quite an 
excited manner, he called his wife, hoping that 
she would get there to see it also. But the 
moment he called her name, the figure disap- 
peared, leaving, however, the intense yellow 
light behind, and which they both observed for 
five minutes by the watch before it faded out. 

The next day it was found that one of his 
patients, closely resembling the figure he had 
seen, had died a few minutes before he saw his 
vision, — had died calling for him. 

It will be seen that this story, like the first 
one in this article, is perfectly authentic in 
every particular. There is no question as to 
the facts. It only remains to find a theory 
that will explain the facts. Was it a telepath- 
ically produced vision, caused by the strong 
desire of the dying woman to see her physician ? 
Or was it the woman herself coming to him a 
few moments after leaving the body ? I leave 
my readers to reply for themselves. 

I will now relate a death vision that has 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 45 

about it some unusual features. These visions, 
of course, are very common. I have known 
many that were striking ; but generally there 
is no way of proving that they are not entirely 
subjective. The dying frequently appear to 
see and converse with their friends who have 
preceded them, but how can any one tell that 
they are not like the imaginings of those in 
delirium ? I have in my collection two or three 
that have about them certain characteristics 
that are hard to explain on that theory. One 
of the best is the following . 

In a neighboring city were two little girls, 
Jennie and Edith, one about eight years of age, 
and the other but a little older. They were 
schoolmates and intimate friends. In June, 
1889, both were taken ill of diphtheria. At 
noon on Wednesday, June 5, Jennie died. 
Then the parents of Edith, and her physician 
as well, all took particular pains to keep from 
her the fact that her little playmate was gone. 
They feared the effect of the knowledge on her 
own condition. To prove that they succeeded 



46 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES, 

and that she did not know, it may be mentioned 
that on Saturday, June 8, at noon, just before 
she became unconscious of all that was passing 
about her, she selected two of her photographs 
to be sent to Jennie, and also told her attend- 
ants to bid her good-bye. 

Eight here is the important point to be 
noticed in this narration. Dying persons 
usually see, or think they see, those and only 
those that they know have passed away. 
Edith did not know that Jennie had gone, and 
so, in the ordinary or imaginative vision, she 
would not have been expected to fancy her 
present. 

She died at half -past six o'clock on the even- 
ing of Saturday, June 8. She had roused and 
bidden her friends good-bye, and was talking of 
dying, and seemed to have no fear. She ap- 
peared to see one and another of the friends 
she knew were dead. So far it was like the com- 
mon cases. But now suddenly, and with every 
appearance of great surprise, she turned to her 
father, and exclaimed, " Why, papa, I am 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 47 

going to take Jennie with me ! " Then she 
added, " Why papa ! Why, papa ! ! You did 
not tell me that Jennie was here ! " And im- 
mediately she reached out her arms as if in 
welcome, and said, " Jennie, I'm so glad 
you are here." 

Now, I am familiar with the mechanism of 
the eye and the scientific theories of vision. I 
know also very well whatever the world knows 
about visions. But I submit that here is some- 
thing not easily accounted for on the theory of 
hallucination. It was firmly fixed in her mind 
that Jennie was still alive, for within a few 
hours she had arranged to have a photograph 
sent her. This also comes out in the fact of 
her great astonishment when her friend appears 
among those she was not at all surprised to 
see, because she knew they had died. It goes, 
then, beyond the ordinary death vision, and 
presents a feature that demands, as an adequate 
explanation, something more than the easy one 
of saying she only imagined it. 

I have read, of course, a good many stories 



48 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

telling of the apparent seeing of " spirit " 
forms on the part of animals. One such, and 
a perfectly authentic one, I have in my collec- 
tion. The friend who gave it me I will call 
Miss Z. I have known her for seventeen years, 
and feel as sure of the truth of her narrative 
as though I had been in her place. Without 
any further preface, I will tell her brief 
story. 

In the spring of 1885, on a certain evening, 
she was alone in the house. All the family, 
even to the servants, had gone out. It was 
about eight o'clock, but several gas jets were 
burning, so that the room was light through- 
out. It was in the parlor, a long room rim- 
ing the whole length of the house. Near the 
back of the parlor stood the piano. Miss Z. 
was sitting at the piano, practicing at a difficult 
musical exercise, playing it over and over, and 
naturally with her mind intent on this alone. 
She had as her only companion a little skye 
terrier, a great pet, and which, never having 
been whipped, was apparently afraid of nothing 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 49 

in all the world. He was comfortably placed 

in an easy-chair behind the piano-stool. 

Such, then, was the situation when Miss Z. 

was startled by hearing a sudden growl from 

the terrier, as if giving an alarm of danger. 

She looked up suddenly to see what the matter 

was, when, at the farther end of the room, the 

front of the parlor, there appeared to be a sort 

of mist stretching itself from the door half-way 

across the room. As she watched it, this mist, 

which was gray, seemed to shape itself into 

three forms. The heads and shoulders were 

quite clearly outlined and distinct, though they 

appeared to have loose wrappings about them. 

From the height and general slope of the 

shoulders of one, she thought she recognized 

the figure of a favorite aunt who had died a few 

years before. The middle figure of the three 

was much shorter, and made her think of her 

grandmother, who had been dead for a good 

many years. The third she did not recognize 

at all. The faces she did not see distinctly 

enough so as to feel in any way sure about them. 

4 



50 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

The dog, always before very brave, now 
seemed overcome with terror. He growled 
fiercely several times, and then jumped trem 
bling from his chair, and hid himself under a 
large sofa, utterly refusing to be coaxed out. 
His mistress had never known him to show 
fear before on any occasion whatever. 

Miss Z. now watched the figures, while they 
grew more and more indistinct, and at last 
seemed to fade through the closed door into 
the front hall. When they had disappeared, 
she gave her attention to the frightened terrier. 
He would not leave his hiding-place, and she 
was obliged to move the sofa and carefully lift 
the trembling little creature in her arms. 

Now, the only remarkable thing about this 
is, of course, the attitude and action of the 
dog. The " spirits " did not seem to have 
come for anything. They said nothing, and 
did nothing of any importance. But — and 
this is where the problem comes in — what did 
the dog see ? If his mistress had seen the 
figures first and had shown any fear, it might 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THE OR IE 'S. 51 

reasonably be said that her fear was contagious, 
and that the dog was frightened because she 
was. But the dog was the first discoverer ; 
the discoverer — of what ? If there had been 
nothing there to see, the dog would have seen 
nothing. Are dogs subject to hallucinations ? 
Even if they are, and though it were a sub- 
jective vision on the dog's part, how does it 
happen that Miss Z. also sees it ? Would she 
mistake a dog's subjective vision for the figure 
of her aunt ? 

Turn it about as you will, it is a curious 
experience, and one worth the reader's finding 
an explanation for, if he can. 

The limits of this chapter will make room for 
only one more story. The lady who had this 
experience is the one who gives us the account 
of it, though I tell it in my own words. She 
was a schoolmate of my brother, and her char- 
acter and veracity are beyond question. In 
June, 1886, she was a patient in the family of 
a physician in a well-known city in a neighbor- 
ing state. She was suffering much from mental 



52 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

depression, feeling assured in her own mind 
that she had an ovarian tumor. On this par- 
ticular day, she was lying alone in her room, 
unusually oppressed by foreboding fears. Ly- 
ing thus, absorbed in thoughts of her own con- 
dition, she suddenly became conscious as of an 
open map of the United States being spread 
before her. Her attention was particularly 
directed to Virginia, and then westward to, as 
she then thought, Ohio. At the same time she 
heard the name " McDowell." At once she 
thought of General McDowell, as the only one 
she knew of by that name. But a calm, gentle 
voice seemed to reply to her unspoken thought, 
" No, I am not General McDowell, but a phy- 
sician. I was the first advocate and practi- 
tioner of ovarian surgery. By the urgent 
request of your friends, I have examined your 
case very carefully. Rest assured, madam, 
your malady is not of that character. In time 
you will regain your health, but never be very 
strong." 

With a feeling of awe, gratitude, and wonder, 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 53 

which, she says, she could not attempt to 
express, she rose from the couch on which she 
was lying, and went at once to the doctor's 
office in another part of the house. At once 
she related what had occurred, and asked, 
" Am I right ? " The physician, a lady, went 
to her library and took down her Medical 
Encyclopaedia. From this she read, " Ephraim 
McDowell, born in Virginia, settled in Ken- 
tucky. He performed the first operation in 
ovarian surgery that is recorded in this 
country." 

She was correct, therefore, in every partic- 
ular, except the substituting Ohio for Ken- 
tucky, and this is quite natural, as it is the 
next adjoining state. 

Several points now it is important carefully 
to note. 

In the first place, this lady has had many 
psychic experiences, others of which I hope to 
obtain. 

In the second place, until these began, she 
was a complete sceptic as to continued exist- 



54 PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

ence. She tells me that she was a most un- 
willing convert, and only gave in when com- 
pelled to by her own undoubted experiences. 

Again, she has never been surrounded by 
any atmosphere of belief in these things; for 
even now most of her friends and relatives are 
violently opposed to everything of the sort, and 
she has had to suffer much because she could 
not help but believe. 

Once more, I have been in recent correspond- 
ence with the physician in whose house she 
was at the time. This physician completely 
confirms all the facts, and testifies in the most 
emphatic way to the noble character and un- 
questioned veracity of her patient. And yet, 
though she offers no other theory, she is 
strongly opposed to any explanation that calls 
for the agency of any supernormal intelligence. 
This, however, grows out of the fact that she 
has always been bitterly prejudiced against 
everything of the kind. 

And lastly, both the physician and her 
patient are perfectly assured that the name of 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEOBIES. 55 

Dr. McDowell and his work as a surgeon were 
entirely unknown to the teller of this expe- 
rience at the time when the voice was heard. 

I have many other equally puzzling cases 
left, but these are enough for the present 
installment. Who will find a theory that does 
not lead us into the invisible ? 



56 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 



CHAPTER III. 

After the preceding chapters I need waste 
no time in words of preface or introduc- 
tion. Concerning these I shall now relate, I 
only wish to say, as I have already said con- 
cerning all the rest, that I think I know they 
are genuine. These things took place. They 
took place in the conditions and in the precise 
way which I shall describe. I shall refrain 
from dogmatizing as to theories of explanation. 
Such dogmatism never convinces. People will 
accept a new and unfamiliar truth only when 
driven to it by overwhelming force of evidence. 
I seek only to help in the accumulation of 
evidence; the truth— whatever it be — will at 
last make itself manifest to the minds of all 
reasonable men. 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 57 

For the sake of variety, and to hint at the 
breadth of the field now open for investigation, 
I will begin with a case unlike any of those so 
far presented. 

There is a certain class of sensitives or psych- 
ics who claim to possess what is called psych- 
ometric power. Suppose it is a lady. She 
will take in her hand a letter, and, without 
reading a word of it or even looking at it, she 
receives from it certain impressions, which she 
states. Sometimes she goes into such detail as 
to the contents of the letter and the character 
and personality of the writer as is utterly impos- 
sible on any theory of guess-work. Neither, 
in my judgment, is it to be classed with clair- 
voyance; for she does not read the letter nor 
even seem to see the writer. These phenomena 
of psychometry seem to constitute a class by 
themselves. At times it is not a letter that 
the lady holds in her hands, but any article 
or substance whatever. But in any case, the 
article so held appears to give impressions of so 
precise a nature that the psychic reads the story 



bX PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEOBIES. 

of its past, calls up distant persons and scenes 
— distant both in space and in time. In pres- 
ence of such facts, one finds himself wonder- 
ing if even inanimate nature — if any part of 
nature is inanimate — does not carry with it a 
record or memory of all that ever concerned it. 
But I will suppress any tendency to dream, and 
turn to my fact. 

On a certain morning I visited a psychom- 
etrist. Several experiments were made. I will 
relate only one, as a good specimen of what has 
occurred in my presence more than once. The 
lady was not entranced or, so far as I could 
see, in any other than her normal condition. 
I handed her a letter which I had recently 
received. She took it, and held it in her right 
hand, pressing it close, so as to come into as 
vital contact with it as possible. I had taken 
it out of its envelope, so that she might touch 
it more effectively, but it was not unfolded 
even so much as to give her an opportunity to 
see even the name. It was written by a man 
whom she had never seen, and of whom she had 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 59 

never heard. After holding it a moment, she 
said, " This man is either a minister or a law- 
yer ; I cannot tell which. He is a man of a 
good deal more than nsnal intellectual power ; 
and yet, he has never met with any such suc- 
cess in life as one would have expected, con- 
sidering his natural ability. Something has 
happened to thwart him and interfere with his 
success. At the present time he is suffering 
with severe illness and mental depression. He 
has pain here (putting her hand to the back of 
her head, at the base of the brain)." 

She said much more, describing the man as 
well as I could have done it myself. But I 
will quote no more, for I wish to let a few 
salient points stand in clear outline. These 
points I will number, for the sake of clearness : — 

1. She tells me he is a man, though she has 
not even glanced at the letter. 

2. She says he is either a minister or a 
lawyer ; she cannot tell which. No t onder, 
for he was both; that is, he had preached for 
some years, then had left the pulpit, studied 



60 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

law, and at this time was not actively engaged 
in either profession. 

3. She speaks of his great natural ability. 
This was true in a most marked degree. 

4. But he had not succeeded as one would 
have expected. This again was strikingly true. 
Certain things had happened — which I do not 
feel at liberty to publish — which had broken 
off his career in the middle and made his short 
life seem abortive. 

5. She says he is ill as he writes. At this 
very time he was at the house of a friend, 
suffering from a malarial attack, his business 
broken up, and his mind depressed by the 
thought of his life failure. 

Now this lady did not know I had any such 
friend ; and of all these different facts about 
him, of course she knew absolutely nothing. 
She did not read a word of the letter. But 
(note this carefully) even though she had read 
it all, it would have told her only the one fact 
that, as he wrote, he was not well. It contained 
not the slightest allusion to any of the others. 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. (jl 

This case cannot be explained by clairvoyance, 
for the lady did not possess the power. Was 
it guess-work ? One case might be so explained. 
But one does not guess after this fashion very 
often. So, as I put this case alongside the 
many others which I know, the guess theory 
becomes too improbable for one moment's seri- 
ous consideration. 

I will now tell the story of my first sitting 
with Mrs. P., a psychic famous in the annals 
of psychical research, both in Boston and in 
London. In one way the incidents are very 
slight, but for that very reason they were to 
me all the more striking ; for it seems to me 
that such incidents are beyond the wildest 
theory of guess-work. She might have guessed 
a great many things about me ; but that she 
should have guessed these particular things, 
seems to me most wildly improbable. 

This sitting occurred in the winter of 1885. 
My father had died during the preceding sum- 
mer, aged ninety years and six months. Most 
of his life had been spent in Maine. He had 



62 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

never lived in Boston, and there is no conceiv- 
able way by which Mrs. P. could ever have 
learned about him any other than the most 
general facts. But as she had no earthly 
reason for supposing that I was ever going to 
call on her, I do not know why she should have 
taken the trouble to learn anything about him. 
Even if she had taken such trouble, there was 
no one in the city who could have told her these 
especial facts. They were not known outside 
of one or two members of my own family, and 
at this time no member of my family had ever 
seen Mrs. P. 

Such, then, was the condition of affairs 
when, one morning, I called at her house. She 
soon became entranced. That these trances, in 
her case, are genuine, there is no shadow of a 
question ; and when she returns to her normal 
condition, she has no knowledge of anything 
that has been said or done. Her " control " 
said — what is common enough — that many 
"spirits" were present. Among them he sin- 
gled out for description an old man. This de- 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 63 

scription was general only, but correct so far as 
it went ; for immediately lie proceeded to tell 
me it was my father. Then he added, " He 
calls you Judson." Soon after this, as though 
his attention had just been turned to it, he 
exclaimed that he had a peculiar bare spot 
" right here." (The hand of the psychic was 
lifted and laid on the right side of the top of 
her head, about where the parting of the hair 
would usually be.) 

This is by no means all that was said or done, 
but I single out thus these two tiny facts, so 
that we may look at them a llitle by themselves. 
As to this matter of the bare spot on his head : 
Though living to so advanced an age, my 
father was never bald; but years before I was 
born, as the result of a burn, this particular 
place lost its hair. It was about one inch in 
width and two or three inches long, running 
back from the forehead towards the crown. He 
was accustomed to part his hair on the left 
side, and comb it over this bare place. Gen- 
erally, therefore, it was entirely unnoticed. 



64 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

As I had every reason to suppose that Mrs. 
P. had never seen him, this struck me as at least 
worthy of remark. 

But the other little matter appears to me still 
more worthy of notice. When I was born, 
away up in the middle of Maine, I had a half- 
sister, my father's daughter, who was then liv- 
ing in Massachusetts. She sent home a re- 
quest that I be named Judson. She was to do 
for me certain things, provided her request was 
granted. So I got my middle name ; but she 
died suddenly before ever returning home, and 
I have never learned the reason for her wish. 
The only important thing about this bit of auto- 
biography is to note the fact that (as I always 
supposed, out of tenderness for the memory of 
a favorite daughter) my father, all through my 
boyhood, always called me Judson, though all 
the rest of the family uniformly spoke to me, 
and of me, by my first name ; and (this is 
worthy of note) my father himself, in all his 
later years, fell into the habit of using my first 
name, like the rest of the family. I doubt 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 65 

therefore, if he had called me " Judson " for as 
many as fifteen or twenty years before his death. 
Why, then, does the " control " of Mrs. P., 
after describing correctly this " old man," ex- 
claim, " Why, it is your father ; he calls you 
Judson?" 

Neither one of these things was consciously 
in my own mind at the time, and I can im- 
agine no way by which either the conscious 
or unconscious self of Mrs. P. could ever have 
found them out. 

A very little thing. Yes, and so it was a 
very little thing to know that a piece of amber, 
when rubbed with silk, would attract light 
bodies ; but this little thing had in it the prom- 
ise and potency of world-revolutionizing dis- 
coveries. 

One other thing occurred at this same sit 
ting. Towards its close, Mrs. P.'s " control" 
said : " Here is somebody who says his name is 
John. He was your brother. No, not your 
own brother ; he was your half-brother." 
Then, pressing her hand on the base of her 



66 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

brain, Mrs. P. moaned and rocked herself back 
and forth as if in great agony. Then the 
" control " continued : " He says it was so 
hard to die, away off there all alone ! How he 
did want to see mother ! " Then he went on 
to explain that he died from the effects of a fall, 
striking the back of his head. The whole de- 
scription was most strikingly realistic. 

Now for the facts corresponding to this 
dramatic narration. I had a half-brother John, 
my mother's son. (The family was a threefold 
one, my father and my mother both having 
been married before they married each other.) 
He was many years older than I, and in his 
earlier life had gone to sea. A year or 
two before this sitting, he had been at work 
in Michigan, building a steam saw-mill. Some 
hoisting tackle having got out of gear, he 
had climbed up to disentangle it. Losing his 
hold, he had fallen and struck the back of his 
head on a stick of timber, from the results 
of which he died. No friend was near him at 
the time, but afterward we learned that he had 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 67 

died talking of "Mother"; and love for his 
mother had been a most marked characteristic 
all through his life. 

John was not consciously in my mind at the 
time of this sitting, and I cannot even dream of 
any way by which Mrs. P. could ever even have 
heard that any such person had ever lived. 

I will now relate a very slight incident, but 
one which I should like to have somebody ex- 
plain. The psychic, in this case, was not a pro- 
fessional. She is a personal friend of many 
years' standing. Most of her friends do not 
know that she ever has any such experiences. 
While interested in these matters, she is modest 
and undogmatic, and as much an inquirer as I 
am myself. Her present husband (she has 
been twice married) is a student in these direc- 
tions, and so encourages her in such investi- 
gations. 

One day at a little quiet sitting, she unex- 
pectedly became entranced. It was only occa- 
sionally that this occurred, the " influences " 
commonly working in some other way. While 



68 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

thus entranced, she personated half a dozen 
different people, ranging from a little girl to an 
old man. Her facial expression, voice, gesture 
and whole being took on and expressed the par- 
ticular character in each instance. All this was 
utterly unlike her ordinary demeanor ; for in 
her normal condition, she is unusually shy and 
diffident. She would have needed the art of 
the actress to have purposely assumed and played 
these various parts. 

But only one incident of this sitting will I 
now dwell on. Her first husband claimed to 
be in control and to be speaking to me through 
her. He talked over many things of which I 
knew nothing, and left messages, the purport 
of which were " all Greek " to me, but which 
were full of significance to her as I related them 
when the trance was over. Among other things, 
he said, " Tell my wife that the friend she is 
expecting to visit her will come on Saturday." 
Then he added, laughingly, " She won't believe 
that." 

I knew nothing of any particular friend who 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEOBIES. <i9 

was coming to visit her on Saturday or any 
other day; so all this meant nothing to me. 
But when I gave her the message, she smiled 
and said, " That is snrely a mistake, for I have 
just received a letter from this friend (a lady 
in New York), saying that I am to expect her 
next week Tuesday." 

This sitting was on Wednesday morning. 
In my next day's mail came a letter from my 
friend, in which she told me that, on reaching 
home, she found another letter from New York 
telling her the plans had been changed, and the 
visitor would arrive on Saturday. 

I leave the explanation of this to the wise. 

I wish now to tell some parts of an experi- 
ence which a young lady friend of mine had 
with Mrs. P. , the psychic already referred to. 
This young lady is remarkable for her level 
head, clear thought, and self-control. She and 
Mrs. P. had never met. A sitting* was arranged, 
Miss S. (the young lady) writing and making 
the appointment under an assumed name, and 
giving the address of a friend instead of her 



TO PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEOBIES. 

own home : so anxious was she that there 
should be no clue to her personality. She 
carried a book, and in it three envelopes con- 
taining three locks of hair. One of these locks 
was from the head of her mother, but concern- 
ing the other two she knew nothing. They 
had been given her by a friend to be used as a 
test. When Mrs. P. had become entranced, 
Miss S. gave her one of the envelopes contain- 
ing a lock of hair. Immediately her " control" 
began talking about it. She told whose head it 
was from, gave the name, and not only this, 
but the names of other people connected with 
this one, and described their characteristics and 
the relations in which they stood to each other. 

Meantime Miss S. was in entire ignorance as 
to the correctness of the statements being made. 
She however made a careful record of them 
all, and afterwards found that all which had 
been said was true in every particular. 

Now this case is not like the psychometric 
one mentioned above ; for here the psychic is 
entranced, and it is the " control " that speaks. 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AXD THEORIES. 71 

In the other case, it is the conscious psychic 
herself. 

What happened in regard to this one lock of 
hair happened concerning them all. In each 
case names were given, facts referred to, per- 
sons described, and all with complete accuracy. 
I state the case in this brief and general way ; 
but I have in my possession all the particular 
facts written out at the time. 

I am now to relate the story of three most 
remarkable psychic experiences occurring in the 
life of the same person, then a girl not more 
than twelve years of age. The lady in whose 
girlhood they happened has written them out 
for me, and they are corroborated by witnesses 
who had full knowledge of the facts, so that 
they would constitute evidence in a court of 
justice. 

Following the method I have uniformly pur- 
sued so far, I will tell the stories in my own 
words. I do this for the sake of simplicity ; 
but the autograph documents are in my pos- 
session. 



72 PSYCHICS: FACTS ABB THEORIES. 

When the first instance occurred. Miss D. was 
about eleven years old. She was an extremely 
nervous, sensitive child, afraid of the dark, 
always hearing strange sounds, and never will- 
ing to go upstairs to bed alone. 

Her father was an educated man, a Harvard 
graduate, and at this time was teaching a class 
that met in one of the rooms on the second 
floor of the house in which they then lived. 
On this particular evening, just after supper, 
her father sent her up to this classroom to re- 
move the blower from the Franklin coal stove. 
This she did, and then started for the sitting- 
room below again. As she reached the top of 
the stairs, she saw what appeared to be a very 
tall man coming up, and he had nearly reached 
the top. She stepped aside to let him pass ; 
and as she did so, she lifted her head and looked 
him full in the face. He looked down in her 
face for a moment, spoke to her, and said, " I 
watch over you," and then vanished as if into 
the side of the wall. 

He was unusually tall, over six feet, and Miss 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 73 

D. says she remembers Iris face now more dis- 
tinctly than that of any other face she ever saw. 
She knew at once that she had seen him by 
virtue of some strange inner sight. 

So far the word " hallucination " would easily 
explain it all, but let us go on. 

She went on downstairs, and spent the even- 
ing quietly with the family. She said nothing 
that night to any one of what she had seen, only 
all fear of the dark had gone ; and when 
bed-time came, and they asked her if some 
one should go with her, she answered " No." 
From that time forth all the old timidity had 
ceased. Instead of being frightened, as at a 
ghost, she felt cared for and guarded by a lov- 
ing friend. 

The next morning she went to her mother 
and told her what she had seen, adding, " I 
think the man I saw was my father's father." 
This grandfather had died when her father was 
a boy of only eleven. There was no likeness 
of him in the family, and her father remembered 
him only as being a very tall man. When her 



74 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

father heard her description, he said that it was, 
so far as he knew, a faithful likeness. The 
grandmother was still living, but, being a very 
strict Baptist, knew nothing whatever of these 
psychical matters ; but she declared that she 
could not herself have given a better description 
of her husband than the one her granddaughter 
gave, from having seen this figure on the stairs. 
And she always believed that, for some special 
reason, this visit from the unseen had been 
permitted. 

A short time after, this same little Miss D. 
was seated in her father's study CAe evening 
reading a book. After a while she looked up 
from her book, and said, " Father, there is some 
one here in this room, and she wishes to speak." 
Her father was writing at his desk in another 
part of the room, facing away from her. But 
as she spoke, he turned, and said, " If any one 
wishes to speak with me, she must give me her 
name, as I am busy." Then the little girl said, 
" Her name is Mary," and, waiting a moment, 
she added, " Mary Pickering." At once her 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 75 

father seemed greatly interested, and said, " If 
this is you, Mary, tell me something by which 
I may know that it is you." Miss D. then said 
(the information seemed to come to her in some 
inexplicable way, for she heard no words with 
the outer ear) : " She has been in the other life 
many years. She was from twenty-two to 
twenty-four when she died. She died quite 
unexpectedly, after a very short illness, of a 

fever. She lived in B . You met her and 

became acquainted with her while teaching in 
that town, and boarding in her father's family, 
before you left college. You knew her before 
you went to the divinity school. She has been 
often, often to you, and you have hiow?i it." 

The father had been educated for the Baptist 
ministry, and at this time had no faith in the 
possibility of spirits returning, so far as any of 
the family knew. But he asked his daughter 
if she could describe this Mary, saying, " She 
had marked peculiarities in dress and in the 
manner of arranging her hair." The daughter 
replied : " Yes, she has hair almost black, dark 



76 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

eyes, so dark you would call them black ; but as 
you look closer, you see they are hazel. She 
wears this hair in three curls on each side of the 
face, and these curls reach down in such a manner 
that they make a frame for the face, while the 
rest of the hair is combed back and fastened by 
a comb in a twist at the back of the head. The 
last time you saw her she had on a cloth dress ; 
it looks like a black wool, and is cut with a 
plain, full skirt, and a plain back to the body ; 
but the front crosses one side over the other in 
three folds, and the sleeve has a look like a leg 
of mutton."- 

Then the father sat for a few moments in 
silence. But soon, taking his bunch of keys from 
his pocket, he unlocked a drawer in his writing- 
desk which his little girl had never seen opened 
before. From this he took a daguerreotype, and, 
passing it to her, he said, " This is a likeness of 
Mary Pickering ; does she look like this ? " 
Thereupon the little girl said, " Just like it ; 
only what I see is spirit." 

The name of this young lady the little girl 



PSYCHICS: FACTS A XT) THEORIES. 77 

had never before heard. She did not know 
that such a person had ever lived ; and no one 
in the family, except her father, knew that 
such a portrait was in existence ; and only he 
knew of this episode in his past life. Yet 
everything that Miss D. had seen and said 
corresponded perfectly with the facts. 

This Miss D., now of course grown up, is a. 
personal acquaintance, and her father testifies 
to the strict truthfulness of all that is here 
written down. And here, let it be remembered, 
is no experience with a professional. This lady 
lives in the quiet of a wealthy home ; has 
never " sat " for psychical investigation, either 
for money or for any other reason. Only all 
her life long' she has been subject to these 
strange experiences. Also it is worth noting 
that she is healthy and sane, and practical to 
an unusual degree. 

But now for one more experience out of her 
girlhood life. Again she was sitting with her 
father in his study. She was a great book- 
lover, and so his study was a favorite place 



78 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

with the daughter. This time it was a mail 
she saw. So she said to her father, " There is 
a man here by the name of Rockwood." Her 
father said : " Yes, I knew a young fellow by 
that name once ; but he has been dead for 
years now. Tell me where I knew him and 
how ! " So she went on, and said, " You knew 
him in H., when you were attending the class- 
ical school then kept by G. R." Then she 
proceeded to describe the house in which he 
had lived and died. She told him it stood at 
the forks of the road, was a mile* from the 
town ; that the funeral was from the house, 
and not the church, as was the custom in the 
town at that time. She told the manner in 
which he had died. 

Her father then said : " I do not know any- 
thing more than the fact that he died some 
years ago. If you can see all this," he added, 
" you certainly ought to be able to tell me 
where he is buried ; and this I do not know 
any more than I know whether his funeral was 
in a church or in his own house." 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 79 

In a few moments she went on, " I can go 
over the entire ground "' Then, mentally, she 
went into the house, saw the body as it lay in 
the coffin, saw the face, and told how he looked 
and what he had on. Then she saw them take 
the coffin from the front right-hand room, and 
put it into the hearse, and go slowly to the 
cemetery, which was a mile away. She also 
described how the bell in the Orthodox Church 
tolled all the time while the procession was on 
the way to the grave. She seemed to enter 
the cemetery by the middle gate. She de- 
scribed the lot as being on the left side of the 
main driveway, just before coming to the new 
addition to the cemetery at the farther side. 

She had never been in this town in her life, 
and knew nothing about it. Her father knew 
nothing of the circumstances of the death or 
the funeral, or of there being any new addition 
to the cemetery. He however became so inter- 
ested in the matter, that he asked her if she 
thought she could go unguided from the rail- 
way station to the cemetery, and then back to 



80 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

the house. She felt so sure that she could, 
that it was decided that a trial should be made. 
So one day they together visited the town. 
Her father kept behind, and let her go on 
alone. As stated above, she had never before 
been in the town, and he had not visited it for 
many years ; but she proceeded directly to the 
cemetery. When they reached the left-hand 
corner of the cemetery, she said, " I can go in 
here instead of going round to the main 
entrance, where the procession entered, and go 
straight to the grave." This she did, recogniz- 
ing the place as the one she had seen mentally, 
and finding it as familiar as though she had 
known it all her life. 

Now occurred a curious incident. At the 
grave they saw a strange gentleman neither of 
them had ever seen before. He was talking 
with the town undertaker. Seeing them come 
to this particular lot, he spoke to them. It 
turned out that he had married a sister of this 
Mr. Eockwood, by whose grave they were 
standing. After falling into conversation, Mr. 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 81 

D., the little girl's father, told him what had 
brought them there. He straightway became 
so interested in the matter, that he begged 
them to go to the old home with him, and see 
if his wife confirmed the story as Miss D. had 
told it. He said he noticed them enter the 
cemetery ; and though familiar with all the 
place, he could not surely have gone more 
directly to the grave. They accepted the in- 
vitation, and, her father having renewed his 
old acquaintance with what was left of the 
family, they spent the night there. The 
sister of Mr. Rockwood remembered all the 
particulars of her brother's death, and con- 
firmed all that Miss D. had said. He had died 
in the chamber she had described ; the funeral 
was in the house and not in the church ; the 
bell did toll while the procession was in motion. 
In short, she had been correct in every detail. 
This case seems to me a most remarkable one, 
and one not easily to be classified under any 
one head. She sees this Mr. Rockwood, and 

he tells her what she does not know. Her 

6 



82 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

father knows a part of it, but by no means all. 
So, telepathy might help us in explanation *of 
some of it; it does not cover all. Another 
part of it looks like clairvoyance ; and yet 
clairvoyance, as ordinarily understood, sees 
only what is going on at the time. But here 
the past is resurrected; not only persons, but 
places and events. Let who can undertake to 
explain. All I will say is that it comes to me 
so supported by evidence, and first-hand evi- 
dence at that, that I cannot but accept it as true. 

One more case shall close this already long 
story of psychic experience. It occurred on a 
certain evening in June in the year 1890. The 
place is a well-known town in one of the New 
England States. The psychic is a clergy- 
man who gives me the account, and it is con- 
firmed by the autograph indorsement of the 
other principal man concerned. It seems to me 
to demand the presence and the activity of 
some invisible intelligence. 

There were present Mr. and Mrs. B., two 01 
three friends, and the clergyman. Con versa- 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 83 

tion turned on this general subject, when Mr. 
B. remarked that he wished he could have 
a satisfactory test. The clergyman, Mr. L. ? 
thereupon felt a sudden and very powerful ner- 
vous shock. This always precedes, in his 
case, an experience of this kind. He describes 
it by saying that this strange sensation com- 
mences at the cerebellum, and passes down the 
spinal column, and thence branching to his feet. 
The feeling is very like that produced by the 
action of an electric current applied to the 
base of the brain, and passed downward, espe- 
cially if the surface of the skin is lightly 
touched by the sponge. 

Immediately he saw (it was a subjective 
vision) the face and form of a gentleman who 
was a stranger to him. He bore a resemblance 
to Mr. B., who sat near. In this same subjec- 
tive way, he saw the name of "Edward B." 
(I give only the initial of the last name, though 
the full name is in my possession). Then he 
seemed to have uttered these words : " Tell 
my brother that a piece of property which I 



84: PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

once owned, and which by death fell to my 
heirs, and is now owned by my brother, is in 
danger of being lost to him. He must look 
after it at once, or it will pass out of his 
hands." The "spirit" was very urgent, and 
the psychic was very strangely thrilled and af- 
fected by his presence. Those in the room 
remarked on the changed character of the psy- 
chic's countenance, it being shining and appar- 
ently illuminated. 

Mr. B. at once replied, however : " It is not 
possible that this can be true. I have all my 
tax bills on the various properties which I own 
in Nebraska. It is a mistake." 

This Mr. B. is a cautious and careful busi- 
ness man ; so what occurred is all the more 
remarkable. He was not a spiritualist, but was 
a candid inquirer. 

In spite of the denial of Mr. B., the " spirit" 
was very urgent that the matter be looked up 
at once. 

A few days later, Mr. L., the clerical psychic 
(he is still in the active work of the ministry, 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 85 

and not making a profession of this strange 
power), sailed for a vacation trip to Europe. 
He was absent several months. 

On his return he met Mr. B. one day, and he 
said : " Oh, about that matter in Nebraska. I 
looked over my papers soon after you went 
away, and found that one of my tax bills on a 
certain piece of property was missing. I felt 
sure that I had received it, but I found that 
I had been mistaken. I at once wrote to my 
agent (in Nebraska), and requested him to send 
the tax bill to me. Several days elapsed beyond 
those required for an answer, but none came. 
I wrote again, and peremptorily, telling my 
agent that he could attend to the matter im- 
mediately, or I would transfer my business to 
another man. This letter brought a prompt 
reply. The agent wrote that, through his own 
oversight, the lessee had been allowed to pay 
the tax on the property, and had taken as 
security what is called a tax lien. The payment 
of these taxes, and the taking of such liens for 
a certain length of time ivill, in the end, 



86 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

entitle the lessee to a warrantee deed of the 
property" 

This is Nebraska law ; and many a dodge of 
this kind is resorted to as a means of swin- 
dling' the real owner out of his property. 

This seems to be a strikingly clear-cut case. 
At the time of this message, purporting to come 
from Mr. B.'s brother, no living man this side 
of Nebraska had any knowledge of the facts as 
stated. These facts proved to be correct in 
every particular. And here is one instance 
that a " spiritualist " might use in rebuttal of 
the common charge that the " messages/' never 
tell anything that is of any value to anybody. 
In this case, certainly, a valuable price of prop- 
erty was saved by the message whatever may 
have been its source. 

The story is authenticated in such £ way as 
would make it good evidence in the hands o f 
any judge, or before any jury in Christendom 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 87 



CHAPTER IV. 

No matter what my opinion is, for the pres- 
ent. The reader is not expected to care. I do 
not mean to reveal it. I may, however, do so 
quite inadvertently. Perhaps I shall find it no 
easy thing to keep it from peeping out some- 
where between the lines. For of course I have 
one. I am not the "intelligent juror " who 
has not heard of the case. And, having 
studied it for several years, I cannot claim to 
be entirely free from bias. Should I claim to 
be, the reader might justly question my compe- 
tence to form an opinion on any subject. But 
I can say — and this is all the reader need care 
about — that I have no opinion which I am not 
ready to revise or to reject altogether for a 
sufficient reason. Neither am I like the old 
Scotchman who said : " I am open to convic- 



88 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

tion, but where is the man that ca# convince 
me ? " I am not able to understand how any 
man should care to hold or defend any opinion 
that is not true. Since the truth is the only 
reality, he who seeks or cherishes anything- else 
is only storing up disappointment for himself. 

So much it seems needful for me to say. 
Not that I am egotistical enough to imagine 
that my unsupported opinion is so important 
as to concern any one ; but because my point 
of view, and the spirit in which I enter on my 
task, may greatly concern all those who be- 
come interested in this discussion. It is im- 
portant that the reader should know that I am 
not an interested advocate, and that I will join 
him in being grateful to any one who shall 
prove to be wise enough satisfactorily to settle 
the problem that is to be raised. This prob- 
lem concerns both the reality and the nature 
of certain alleged facts that are usually as- 
sociated with, or that pass under the name of, 
Spiritualism. 

The Spiritualists make two claims that need 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 89~ 

to be noted, only in order that their real posi- 
tion niay be understood, and that the situation 
may be stated as fairly as possible. 

In the first place, they say that though there 
has been an extraordinary and wide-spread de- 
velopment of these phenomena in the modern 
world, they are no new thing, and so are not. 
out of keeping with what has occurred in 
the past history of mankind. Intelligent and 
credible witnesses, they claim, have reported 
similar happenings in every age. And, in spite 
of misreports and exaggerations, they further 
claim that these stories are so in line with their 
own experiences as to make the belief entirely 
reasonable that there are grains of truth in the 
bushels of chaff. For example, concerning the 
story of the resurrection of Jesus, few of them 
would believe that the body which was cru- 
cified ever lived again. They would say that 
a spiritual reappearance is a more rational ex- 
planation than, on the one hand, that the 
disciples lied, or, on the other, that the story 
sprang up out of nothing at all. And then 



90 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

they point to such well-attested reports as those 
of the extraordinary happenings in the house 
of the Wesleys in England, and in that of Dr. 
Phelps in Connecticut. 

In the second place, they resent the charge 
that they believe in the supernatural or the 
miraculous. They say that if these things 
occur at all, they are a part of the natural 
order ; and that they are none the less so 
because the persons who are the agents and 
actors in them are invisible to ordinary human 
sight. So much in order fairly to set forth the 
situation. And now I must ask the reader's 
patience for even a little longer, while I make 
a few more preliminary points. 

As to my reasons for looking into this sub- 
ject. A minister is expected to be able to 
help his parishioners in their practical difficul- 
ties ; and as hundreds of people have applied 
to me for advice in these matters, I have felt 
that I ought to have an opinion for them and 
not merely a prejudice. Then, while I have 
always hoped for a future life, and while I have 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEOBIES. 91 

felt the force of all the arguments so often pre- 
sented, I have been compelled to confess that 
these arguments fell short of demonstration ; 
and I have been willing to exchange a hope 
for a demonstration, provided such a thing 
were possible. In the third place, I have felt 
that Spiritualism is either a grand truth or a 
most lamentable delusion; and for the sake of 
the vast interests involved, and of the thousands 
who looked to it for light, it has seemed to me 
that the problem ought to be competently in- 
vestigated. I agreed with Professor Sidgwick, 
of Cambridge, England, in saying chat it was a 
scandal to the scientific world that so grave 
and so important a matter should go so long 
without any adequate explanation. 

Then, though many had claimed to inves- 
tigate, and had declared the whole matter only 
fraud and humbug, I had to remember some 
things. First, that hypnotism had been ex- 
amined by a scientific commission and gravely 
pronounced only charlatanry and delusion ; 
while to-day it is universally accepted, and is 



92 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEOBIES. 

used by the regular faculty in the treatment of 
disease. Secondly, that clairvoyance was once 
only scouted; while now most competent inves- 
tigators are compelled to admit that such a thing 
does really exist. Thirdly, that mind-reading 
or telepathy was at first declared to be impos- 
sible ; but that to-day it seems to be the only 
way of explaining certain things that do actually 
occur. 

And then, long study had driven me to the 
conclusion that, in a universe the size of this, 
a modest scientific man will hesitate about 
declaring as to what is or what is not impos- 
sible. The world is perhaps a little too free 
with its theories as to what can happen and 
what cannot happen. Not long ago a work- 
man in a New York factory came to the over- 
seer with a strange story as to the behavior of 
the steam in a certain part of the works. The 
overseer, who had made steam his life-long 
study, declared that the thing was impossible ; 
steam could not act in that way. But investiga- 
tion proved that the "impossible" was taking 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 93 

place ; and the result was a new invention, 
more knowledge of steam, and an increase in 
the modesty of the overseer. It is only the 
traditional court pettifogger who any longer 
" denies the fact." If it be a fact, then room 
must be made for it somewhere, however long 
the explanation of it may have to wait. 

I have always tried, then, first to see if I 
could find any facts. I have a horror of being 
fooled. I have studied sleight of hand, and 
tried to find out the limits and possibilities of 
trickery. I have, in all directions, wanted the 
truth and only the truth. I hold that the 
"scientific method" is the only method of 
knowledge, and that it can be applied success- 
fully to anything that is real, and with which 
we really come in contact. I may hope a 
thousand things ; I may believe that many 
things are probable ; but I have never claimed 
to know anything that could not be demon- 
strated as true. 

In my investigations I have ruthlessly set 
aside everything that has seemed to occur 



94 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

where the conditions were such that I coulcl not 
feel sure of my facts. And when I have had 
the surest grip on a fact, in reasoning upon it, 
I have rigidly tried to explain it in accordance 
with known laws and forces. It is only when 
all my knowledge of accepted theories and 
forces failed to help me to a solution, that I 
have set the fact aside until some wiser man 
could tell me what it meant. A study like 
this, extending over a period of at least a dozen 
years, has left me where I am to-day. I am in 
possession of quite a large body of apparent 
facts that I do not know what to do with. The 
generally-recognized scientific order of the 
world has no place for them ; I therefore bring 
them into the open air of the public to see if 
any one is wise enough to tell what they mean. 
Have they any bearing on the nature and 
destiny of man ? Do they require for explana- 
tion the agency of invisible intelligences ? Or, 
can they be referred to the working of embodied 
minds ? 

That certain things to me inexplicable have 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 95 

occurred, I believe. The negative opinion of 
some one with whom no such things have oc- 
curred will not satisfy me. Some of those who 
know the least about such matters will doubt- 
less inform me that I have been deluded, and 
that my supposed facts are not facts at all. 
But so long as they do not know the care I 
have taken, nor the circumstances, and are 
ignorant of how many times I have repeated 
the same experiment, this proposed explanation 
will hardly satisfy me. Neither will it be quite 
enough to tell me how a similar thing may be 
done under other conditions. I know all this 
already, but this knowledge has no bearing on 
my particular series of facts. 

After so much preliminary — none of which, 
under the circumstances, seems to me uncalled 
for — I am ready to submit some specimens of 
those things that constitute my problem. They 
can be only specimens, for a detailed account 
of even half of those I have laid by would 
stretch to the limits of a book. 

Though all that has ever been claimed as 



96 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

true, under the general heads of hypnotism, 
clairvoyance, clairaudience, and telepathy, 
should be proved to be true beyond all ques- 
tion, it is of course apparent that all of them 
together would still fall far short of proving 
the spiritualistic claim. For this claim is 
nothing less than that those we call dead are 
still alive, and that, at certain times and under 
certain conditions, they both can and do com- 
municate with persons still in the ordinary 
body. 

And yet, as the very first point in my prob- 
lem, I wish to submit a case that I suppose 
falls under the head of telepathy. Out of many 
I choose this, for the following reasons : It is 
unquestionably true. Names, dates, and all 
details are accessible. The distance across 
which the line of communication stretched was 
enormous. The fact was not expected, and 
could not have been anticipated. No ordinary 
method of communication, not even the tele- 
graph, was possible. It is not different in kind 
from a thousand others ; but, like a taller 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 97 

mountain among its fellows, it stands out with 
peculiar distinctness as a remarkable specimen 
of its kind. 

A merchant ship, bound for New York, was 
on her homeward voyage. She was in the 
Indian Ocean. The captain was engaged to 
be married to a lady living in New England. 
One day, early in the afternoon, he came, pale 
and excited, to one of his mates and exclaimed : 
" Tom, Kate has just died ! I have seen her 
die ! " The mate looked at him in amazement, 
not knowing what to make of such talk. But 
the captain went on and described the whole 
scene — the room, her appearance, how she died, 
and all the circumstances. So real was it to 
him, and such was the effect on him of his grief 
that, for two or three weeks, he was carefully 
watched lest he should do violence to himself. 
It was more than 150 days before the ship 
reached her harbor. During all this time no 
news was received from home. But when at 
last the ship arrived at New York, it was found 
that Kate did die at the time and under the 

7 

L.cfC. 



98 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

circumstances seen and described by the captain 
off the coast of India. 

This is only one case out of hundreds. What 
does it mean ? Coincidence ? Just happened 
so ? This might be said of one case ; but a 
hundred of such coincidences become inex- 
plicable. Did some invisible intelligence con- 
vey the news ? Did he really see her ? Or did 
she, in that hour, reach out with such a longing 
that she touched him half-way round the Avorld? 

Now, though this may fall far short of the 
spiritualistic claim, does it not suggest some- 
thing strange and generally unrecognized as to 
the nature and power of mind ? If mind can, 
under any conditions, or however rarely, assert 
such a semi-independence of the body and of 
the ordinary methods of communication, may 
it not be able to go alone? I do not say or 
think that such a supposition is proved by a 
case like this ; but is it not at least suggested ? 
When the Second Adventist told Emerson that 
the world was coming to an end, he calmly 
replied : " Well, I think I can get along 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 99 

without it." Do not cases like the above ai* 
least start the surmise as to whether these souls 
of ours are not such as to be able to "get along 
without it " ? 

I pass now to such phenomena as are usually 
classed under the head of Spiritualism. I shall 
avoid the use of the word so far as possible, for 
the reason that it assumes an explanation ; and 
it is an explanation of which I am still in search. 
I shall present specimens of three different 
classes of manifestations. 

1. And first, I note some of such as are 
usually spoken of as " physical/' though I have 
never seen any that were purely physical, for 
the intelligence of somebody has always been 
mixed with them. These physical experiments 
are justly regarded with more suspicion than 
are those of the higher order, because the op- 
portunities for trickery are great, and they seem 
to be more nearly on a level with the work of the 
prestidigitator. But the conditions, the time, 
the place, and one's capacity as an observer, 
must be taken into account. Surely it is pos- 



100 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

sible, at least in some cases, for one to know 
what really happens. I will instance a few 
cases, and the reader must judge. 

I went to the house of a woman in New 
York. She was not a professional. We had 
never seen each other before. We took seats 
in the parlor for a talk, I not looking for any 
manifestation. Raps began. I do not say 
whether they were really where they seemed to 
be or not ; I know right well that the judgment 
is subject to illusion through the senses. But 
I was told a "spirit friend" was present ; and 
soon the name, time and place of death, etc., 
were given me. It was the name of a friend 
I had once known intimately. But twenty 
years had passed since the old intimacy ; she 
had lived in another State ; I am certain that 
she and the psychic had never known or even 
heard of each other. She had died within a 
few months. 

I have had several experiences that have 
demonstrated to me that physical objects are 
sometimes moved in a way that cannot be ac- 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 101 

counted for by any muscular power, or by any 
mere physical force with the workings of which 
I am acquainted. I was sitting one evening at 
the house of a friend, a lady whom I had known 
for eight or ten years. Neither she nor her 
husband was a Spiritualist ; but that which, for 
want of a better name, we call psychic force, 
was sometimes manifested in her presence. 
Both she and her husband were simply inquir- 
ers, as I was. At the end of the evening I rose 
to go. Many inexplicable things had already 
occurred. Then I thought I would try a simple 
experiment. She and I stood at opposite sides 
of the table at which we had been sitting. 
Both of us having placed the tips of our ringers 
lightly on the top of the table, I spoke, as if 
addressing some unseen force connected with 
the table, and said : " Now I must go ; will you 
not accompany me to the door?" The door 
w T as ten or fifteen feet distant and was closed. 
The table started. It had no casters, and in 
order to make it move as it did we should have 
had to go behind and to push it. As a matter 



102 PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

of fact, we led it, while it accompanied us all 
the way and struck against the door with con- 
siderable force. I then lifted it and carried it 
back into the middle of the room. My friend 
then stood at the end of it opposite to me, while 
I stood at some distance away, between it and 
the door. I addressed it again, as though talk- 
ing to an intelligent being, and said : " Will 
you not lift for me the other end of the table ? " 
My friend stood with only the tips of her fin- 
gers touching the upper side of the table near 
the end. Immediately the end of the table next 
to her was lifted into the air, and the table went 
through a motion as if bowing to me, bending* 
over as far as her arms could reach. In this 
case, I might have been suspicious of some pos- 
sible trick, but for two considerations. First, 
I knew and trusted my friend ; secondly, I 
could plainly see the hands, and knew that the 
thumbs were not under the eckfe of the table. 
Besides, I had learned before, under other con- 
ditions, that this power of moving physical 
objects did exist. 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 103 

I add one more experiment of my own. I 
sat one day in a heavy stuffed arm-chair. The 
psychic sat beside me, and laying his hand 
on the back of the chair, gradually raised it. 
Immediately I felt and saw myself, chair and 
all, lifted into the air at least one foot from the 
floor. There was no uneven motion implying 
any sense of effort on the part of the lifting 
force ; and I was gently lowered again to the 
carpet. This was in broad light, in a hotel par- 
lor, and in presence of a keen-eyed lawyer friend. 
I could plainly watch the whole thing. No 
man living could have lifted me in such a posi- 
tion, and besides, I saw that the psychic made 
not the slightest apparent effort. Nor was 
there any machinery or preparation of any kind. 
My companion, the lawyer, on going away, 
speaking in reference to the whole sitting, said : 
" I've seen enough evidence to hang every man 
in the State — enough to prove anything except- 
ing this ! " 

Professor Crookes, of London, relates having 
seen and heard an accordion played on while it 



104 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

was inclosed in a wire net-work and not touchect 
by any visible hand. I have seen an approach 
to the same thing. In daylight, I have seen a 
man hold an accordion in the air not more than 
three feet away from me. He held it by one 
hand, grasping the side opposite to that on 
which the keys were fixed. In this position, 
it, or something, played long tunes, the side 
containing the keys being pushed in and drawn 
out without any contact that I could see. I 
then said : " Will it not play for me ? " The 
reply was: "I don't know ; you can try it." 
I then took the accordion in my hands. There 
was no music ; but what did occur was quite as 
inexplicable to me, and quite as convincing as 
a display of some kind of power. I know not 
how to express it, except by saying that the 
accordion was seized as if by some one trying 
to take it away from me. To test this power, 
I grasped the instrument with both hands. The 
struggle was as real as though my antagonist 
were another man. I succeeded in keeping it,, 
but only by the most strenuous effort. 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 105 

On another occasion I was sitting with a 
" medium." I was too far away for him to reach 
me, even had he tried ; which he did not do> 
for he sat perfectly quiet. My knees were not 
under the table, but were where I could see 
them plainly. Suddenly my right knee was 
grasped as by a hand. It was a firm grip. I 
could feel the print and pressure of all the 
fingers. I said not a word of the strange sensa- 
tion, but quietly put my right hand down and 
clasped my knee, in order to see if I could feel 
anything on my hand. At once I felt what 
seemed like the most delicate finger tips play- 
ing over my own fingers and gradually rising 
in their touches toward my wrist. When this 
was reached, I felt a series of clear, distinct, 
and definite pats, as though made by a hand of 
fleshy vigor. I made no motion to indicate 
what was going on, and said not a word until 
the sensation had passed. All this while I was 
carefully watching my hand, for it was plain 
daylight and all was in full view ; but I saw 
nothing. 



106 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

If anybody will explain these things I shall 
be very grateful, whether the explanation take 
me to another world or leave me in this one. 

I should like merely to suggest that, so far 
as we know, the only force that under any 
circumstances ever opposes or overcomes the 
force of gravity, is will force, or some power 
under the direction of intelligent will. If, there- 
fore, a single pin's weight of matter is ever 
moved contrary to the natural pull of gravity, 
and the motion is not explainable by any of the 
known forces of nature, we must in its presence 
regard ourselves as standing on the border line 
of some undiscovered power. If the signifi- 
cance of such a fact is once appreciated, people 
will hardly sneer at such things as unworthy, 
undignified, or of no account even if true. 

And when people ask me why this, and why 
that, and why not something else, if anything 
at all is going to happen, I have a ready reply. 
The three great questions that the world is 
always asking are, " What," " How," and 
" Why." Thus, science begins with What ; 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 107 

this is observation of facts, the first step in 
rational inquiry. Some of the world's Hows 
we can answer ; this is the region of methods 
and laws. But Why is a question that very 
few people are ever able to answer in regard to 
anything. It is wiser, then, to begin with the 
What, and we should be thankful if we can get 
as far as the How. Until I know more about 
these, I will let the Why rest. 

2. In the second place, I will cite some ex- 
amples of psychic power more exclusively mental. 
Here I am bewildered with the mass of material. 
I confine myself, at present, to a certain class 
of cases — those in which I have been told things 
which I knew, but which I know the psychic 
did not know. Such instances have been so 
numerous in my experience that, like the tele- 
phone and telegraph, they have become almost 
commonplace. Of course they may be mind- 
reading — if some one will only tell me what 
mind-reading is. Since this may be telepathy, 
I must be brief with them, as I have more 
important cases still to relate. 



108 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

The first time I was ever in the presence of 
a particular psychic, she went into a trance. 
She had never seen, and so far as I know had 
never had any way of hearing of, my father, 
who had died some years previously. When I 
was a boy he always called me by a special name 
that was never used by any other member of 
the family. In later years he hardly ever used 
it. But the entranced psychic said : " An old 
gentleman is here"; and she described certain 
very marked peculiarities. Then she added : 
"He says he is your father, and he calls you 
," using this old childhood name of mine. 

On another occasion a friend went to the 
same psychic, taking an unmarked lock of my 
hair in an envelope. This envelope was put into 
her hand after she had become entranced. She 
not only at once told my name, but also details 
of many occurrences that had taken place in my 
study — things that were said and done, the 
peculiar way in which the lock was cut off, and 
the like. Nothing whatever had been said about 
me, and there was nothing that, in the mind of 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AXD THEORIES. 109 

the psychic, could have associated the visitor 
with me. 

One case more only will I mention under 
this head. A most intimate friend of my youth 
had recently died. She had lived in another 
State, and the psychic did not know that such a 
person had ever existed. We were sitting alone 
when this old friend announced her presence. 
It was in this way : A letter of two pages was 
automatically written, addressed to me. I 
thought to myself as I read it — I did not speak — 
" Were it possible, I should feel sure she had 
written this." I then said, as though speaking 
to her : " Will you not give me your name ? " 
It was given, both maiden and married name. 
I then began a conversation lasting over an 
hour, which seemed as real as any I ever have 
with my friends. She told me of her children, 
of her sisters. We talked over the events of 
boyhood and girlhood. I asked her if she 
remembered a book we used to read together, 
and she gave me the author's name. I asked 
again if she remembered the particular poem 



110 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

we were both specially fond of, and she named 
it at once. In the letter that was written, and 
in much of the conversation, there were apparent 
hints of identity, little touches and peculiarities 
that would mean much to an acquaintance, but 
nothing to a stranger. I could not but be 
much impressed. 

Now, in this case, I know that the psychic 
never knew of this person's existence, and of 
course not of our acquaintance. But I got 
nothing that I did not know, and so I am not 
sure that this went beyond the limits of tele- 
pathy. But, if telepathy, it was entirely un- 
conscious on the psychic's part. And in this 
case there was no trance. I could fill a good- 
sized book with cases of this sort. I will, 
however, only set up an interrogation point 
and pass on. 

3. In the third place, I wish to offer two or 
three typical cases in which the mystery, to my 
mind, grows deeper still. In these instances 
the information imparted was not known, and 
could not have been known^ either to the 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. HI 

psychic or to myself, the only other person 
present. It was afterward found to be true. 
These are peculiarly interesting to me, because 
I do not see how the theory of telepathy can 
be so stretched as to include them. 

As in some of the cases already described, I 
was sitting with my psychic friend, who is not 
a professional and whose powers are known 
only to a few intimate friends. I will also say 
of her that she does not always possess the 
power, and has over it no voluntary control. 
She simply sits and waits, and sometimes some- 
thing occurs and sometimes nothing. 

On one of these occasions a dead friend 
claimed to be present. She had one living 
sister, married and settled two hundred miles 
from Boston. After the ordinary conversation, 
it occurred to me to attempt a little test. I 
had reason to suppose that, at the particular 
time, the married sister was in another town 
than that in which she resided ; so the bias of 
my mind was in that way. I note this because 
a mind-reader could not have given the answer 



112 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

I received. I asked this supposed " spirit " 
friend if she knew where her sister was at that 
hour. The answer came that she did not ; and 
that she had no way of knowing, any more 
than I had, unless she should go or send and 
find out. Then I said : " Can you go or send 
for me?" I was told that she would try, and 
was directed to wait. For fifteen minutes 
everything was quiet. Then came a signal. 
I asked what it meant, and got the reply that 
it was my friend, who had returned. I said : 
a Have you found out for me ? " The answer 
was : " Yes ; she is at home in her own house. 
She is getting ready to go out." 

The reply was entirely contrary to my ex- 
pectation, and the psychic knew nothing about 
either of the parties concerned. I wrote a 
letter at once to this sister of my dead friend, 
and asked where she was and what she was 
doing on this day and at this hour, telling her 
I would explain later why I wanted to know. 
In due course the answer came, saying : " I 
was at home on that particular forenoon, and 



PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 113 

at about the hour you mention I made a call 
on one of my neighbors." 

At another sitting with the same psychic 
friend, again there purported to be present the 
"spirit" of a lady I had known for years. 
Her father's family and mine had been intimate 
when we were young. If still conscious, she 
knew I was greatly interested in all that per- 
tained to their welfare. She told me of a 
sister married and living in another State. 
She said : " Mary is in a great deal of trouble. 
She is passing through the greatest sorrow of 
her life. I wish I could make her know that 
I care. I wish you would write to her." As 
we talked the matter over, she explained it 
to me, telling me at first vaguely, as though 
shrinking from speaking plainly, and then 
more clearly, making me understand that the 
husband was the cause of her sorrow. I had 
not seen her husband more than once, and had 
never dreamed that they were not happy. And 
the psychic had never heard of any such people. 
In this case, also, I wrote to the lady. I told 



114 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

her I would explain afterward, but for the 
present asked her only to let me know if she 
was in any special trouble ; and provided she 
was, and the nature of it was such that she 
could properly do so, to tell me what it was. 
I received a reply, "private and confidential," 
confirming everything that had been told me 
in the privacy of my own study. And she 
closed by asking me to burn the letter, adding 
that she would not for the world have her 
husband know that she had written it. 

But one more case dare I take the space for, 
though the budget is only opened. This one 
did not happen to me; but it is so hedged 
about and checked off that its evidential value 
in a scientific way is absolutely perfect. The 
names of some of the parties concerned would 
be recognized in two hemispheres. A lady and 
gentleman visited a psychic. The gentleman 
was the lady's brother-in-law. The lady had 
an aunt who was ill in a city two or three hun- 
dred miles away. When the psychic had be- 
come entranced, the lady* asked her if she had 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 115 

any impression as to the condition of her aunt. 
The reply was, " No." But, before the sitting 
was over, the psychic exclaimed : " Why, your 
aunt is here ! She has already passed away." 
" This cannot be true," said the lady ; " there 
must be a mistake. If she had died, they 
would have telegraphed us immediately." 
" But," the psychic insisted, " she is here. 
And she explains that she died about two 
o'clock this morning. She also says a telegram 
has been sent, and you will find it at the house 
on your return." 

Here seemed a clear case for a test. So, 
while the lady started for home, her brother-in- 
law called at the house of a friend and told the 
story. While there, the husband came in. 
Having been away for some hours he had not 
heard of any telegram. But the friend seated 
himself at his desk and wrote out a careful 
account, which all three signed on the spot. 
When they reached home — two or three miles 
away — there was the telegram confirming the 



116 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

fact and the time of the aunt's death, precisely 
as the psychic had told them. 

Here are most wonderful facts. How shall 
they be accounted for ? I have not trusted 
memory for these things, but have made care- 
ful record at the time. I know many other 
records of a similar kind kept by others. They 
are kept private. Why ? Sometimes it is for 
fear of being thought superstitious ; at other 
times it is because of a wish to avoid wound- 
ins: the feelings of friends who, for religious 
or other reasons, are opposed to these things. 
Then, again, the communications are of so 
personal a nature that they are spoken of only 
to intimate friends. 

Psychic and other societies that advertise for 
reports of strange phenomena must learn that 
at least a respectful treatment is to be accorded 
or people will not lay bare their secret souls. 
And then, in the very nature of the case, these 
experiences concern matters of the most per- 
sonal nature. Many of the most striking cases 
people will not make public. In some of those 
above related, I have had so to veil facts that 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 117 

they do not appear as remarkable as they really 
are. The whole cannot be told. 

Of course I have detailed only successful ex- 
periments. At many a sitting I have gotten 
simply nothing. Many times things have been 
told me that were not true : many times I could 
not find out whether they were true or not. 
Large numbers of so-called "mediums" are 
impostors, smart knaves, finding it easier to 
trick for a living than to work for it. Not 
only is there much of fraud, but there is also 
a large amount of self-delusion, on the part 
both of psychics and sitters. There is no 
end of misinterpretation of things that actu- 
ally occur. They are made to mean all sorts 
of things that they need not mean at all. 
But all this ought not to lead the careful 
student to disregard one genuine fact, however 
small it may appear. Each case is to be taken 
by itself. Scientific men know the value of 
even slight things. If it be a fact, place must 
be made for it, and an explanation found if 
possible. 



118 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

When I began this article I intended to 
offer some carefully-verified cases of vision on 
the part of both the dying and the living, as 
well as some instances of the appearances of 
those newly dead to friends at a distance. Of 
the first I have seen some most remarkable, 
where the dying person, along with those 
known to be dead, suddenly recognized some 
one supposed to be still living, expressing the 
greatest astonishment at seeing this one with 
the others. Of the second, I have cases occur- 
ring in the experience of personal friends, which 
I have so carefully verified that I do not know 
how to get rid of them or to disregard them. 
But I must pass them by for the present. 

I have given only selected specimens out of 
a large collection. I do not know what they 
mean ; but T believe that the statements I have 
made are true. Some reader will doubtless 
sneer. Some will say " crank." Some will 
think the writer easily " gulled." But, if not 
this year, at some time, a wiser person will 
explain them. Then, if we do not know any 



ISFfiHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 119 

more about any next world, perhaps we may 
have an extension of our knowledge about this 
one. It is a great universe, and a strange 
one. We are strange beings, and as yet know 
but little as to our own selves. Only the shal- 
lowest think they know it all. 



12,0 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES* 



OHAPTEK V. 

I have now given my readers a large 
number of facts. But facts are worth little 
unless one knows what to do with them. Aris- 
totle was in possession of certain facts, and 
from them he argued that the earth was a 
sphere ; but for hundreds of years after his time 
the wise men of the world came to quite other 
conclusions. This was either because they 
were not wise enough to comprehend their sig- 
nificance, or, as was more commonly the case, 
because they were dominated by some bias that 
led them to adopt a contrary theory. It is 
this latter thing that stands more in the way of 
truth than does ignorance itself. In religion, 
in politics, in political economy, in all direc- 
tions there are facts enough ; but the majority 
of people are prepossessed by theories which 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 121 

hinder their seeing the real meaning of the 
facts. 

I shall then have rendered a very incomplete 
service to those who have taken note of my 
facts if I stop with these. It remains for me 
therefore to indicate the present status of 
psychical inquiry, and to point out what seems 
to me the significance of my facts. I do not 
claim to be so wise here that my conclusions 
will be free of all error, but without immodesty 
I can claim one thing : I am not dominated by 
any theory, and am under no bias to come 
to any particular conclusion. Indeed, I have 
reached a point in my thinking where I find it 
hard to comprehend how any sane man should 
even wish to discover anything but the truth. 
I know there are such people, because they 
have told me that they were content with their 
present beliefs, and even though they were 
wrong, they did not want to find it out. But 
I do not wish to be even pleasantly fooled. I 
wish to know the truth and adjust myself to it. 

I cannot, indeed, agree with those who say 



122 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

that, if there he no other life, this present life 
is not worth having. For — 

— When I look upon the laughing face 
Of children, or on woman's gentle grace ; 
Or when I grasp a true friend by the hand, 
And feel a bond I partly understand ; 
When mountains thrill me, or when by the sea 
The plaintive waves rehearse their mystery ; 
Or when I watch the moon with strange delight 
Treading her pathway 'mid the stars at night ; 
Or when the one I love, with kisses prest, 
I clasp with bliss unspoken to my breast ; — 
So strange, so deep, so wondrous, life appears, 
I have no words, but only happy tears. 
I cannot think it all shall end in naught; 
That the abyss shall be the grave of thought ; 
That °'er oblivion's shoreless sea shall roll 
O'er love and wonder and the lifeless soul. 
But e'en though this the end, I cannot say 
I'm sorry I have seen the light of day. 
So wondrous seems this life I live to me, 
Whate'er the end, to-day I have and see / 
To-day I think and hope : and so for this, — 
If this be all, — for just so much of bliss, 
Bliss blended through with pain, I bless the Power 
That holds me up to gaze one wondrous hour ! 

If, then, this is all, I want to know it and 
make the most of it. If it is only the begin- 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 123 

ning, I want to know that, and lay out my life 
on a scale proportioned to the magnificence of 
its possibilities. And I can conceive of no 
knowledge that for one moment matches this 
in importance. 

Before treating the present standing of 
psychical inquiry, it is needful to note certain 
preceding conditions of human thought out of 
which present conditions have been evolved. 
In the pre-critical and unscientific ages, the be- 
lief in continued existence and some sort of in- 
tercourse between spirits and mortals was practi- 
cally universal. In the general ignorance of nat- 
ural laws, people were not troubled by questions 
of possible or impossible. All forces and hap- 
penings were interpreted in terms of will or cap- 
rice ; and the supernatural presented no difficulty 
because there was, in their minds, no natural 
order. There being no standards of proba- 
bility, what to-day is meant by proof was not 
only not demanded, it was not even understood. 
The journey of Odysseus to Hades was as be- 
lievable as was the vovao;e of the latest Phcenr 



124 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES., 

cian navigator. The appearance of spirits, 
messages from the invisible world, and celestial 
or demoniac interferences with human affairs 
were a part of all religions and of daily life. 
The Bibles of all peoples and all ancient litera- 
tures are abundant witnesses to these facts. If 
any one wishes to come in personal contact 
with this condition of the human mind, he need 
not go further than to the devout Catholic 
servants of his own household. 

As children now are afraid of the dark, the 
lonely, the mysterious, so it was natural that in 
the childhood of the world men should be afraid 
of the invisible. They were in terror at the 
thought of the possible return of even their 
most intimate friends. The gods themselves 
were not regarded as over kind, and their wrath 
must be placated or their favor purchased by 
gifts. Perhaps, therefore, it is not strange that 
these feelings linger still. Most people to-day, 
like Madame de Stael, are afraid of ghosts even 
though they do not believe in them ; and there 
are few who are brave enough to spend a night 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 125 

alone in the room with the body of the one 
they have loved best in all the world. This 
state of mind makes it exceedingly difficult foi 
people to treat these psychical investigations 
in a rational way. Among those who believe 
that "the dead ' ? are still alive, there is a gen- 
eral impression that the fact of death has pro- 
duced some marvellous and magical change so 
that they are real human folks no longer. 
The imagination is full of either angels or 
devils, so that they are troubled with all sorts 
of theories as to what is fitting or becoming, 
instead of being ready to note facts first and 
then see what they mean afterwards. 

But as one of the results of modern science, 
there has been, in the minds of the learned, a 
violent reaction against the superstitions or 
over-beliefs of the past. This is entirely healthy, 
provided science itself does not become a super- 
stition. But a scientific theory may become 
as serious a barrier against the acceptance of a 
new truth as vulgar prejudice itself. Witness 
the scientific authority of Newton as it blinds 



126 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

the eyes of the learned to the truth of Young's 
theory of light, or note the attitude of Agassiz 
in the matter of evolution. Professor Huxley 
has written, with all his power of sarcasm, 
against modern spiritualism. And yet Profes- 
sor Wallace, at least his peer in scientific 
eminence, told me that he had repeatedly tried to 
get Huxley to join him in investigating these 
matters, and he would not. To the mind of 
the ultra-scientist all these stories of the child- 
hood world are so childish that they are to be 
rejected in the lump, without being accorded 
even the dignity of an investigation. I agree 
with this scientific reaction to the extent of 
holding that they are all to be put aside and 
labelled " Not proved " ; that is, the basis on 
which they rest, whether in Bibles or out of 
Bibles, is inadequate, and does not in any case 
amount to demonstration. But it is going 
away beyond any truly scientific warrant to 
say that none of them may be true. And if, in 
the modern world, any similar stories should be 
scientifically established as true, then it would 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 127 

be fully in accord with the scientific method to 
reconsider all or any one of these' traditional 
stories, and estimate the degree of probability 
in its favor. 

Curiously various and contradictory have 
been the positions of different classes of think- 
ers and of those who do not think in the 
modern world. One class has held that all 
these things were childish and superstitious, 
and that only ignorant or flighty people could 
take any stock in them. Members of this class 
smile wisely, not to say superciliously? when 
any of these matters are mentioned. It is this 
attitude of the " Unco " wise (for there is an 
" unco " wise as well as an " unco guid ") 
which led a philosopher, known in two hemis- 
pheres, to say to me : " Well, Savage, suppose we 
become convinced that these things are true, it 
will only be a coiqrte more cranks." Then there 
are the ordinary Protestant Christians, who ac- 
cept such stories as are told in the Bible, and 
reject all others, whether ancient or modern. 
Of course this is a matter of religious " faith," 



128 PSYCHICS : FA CTS AND THEOB IES. 

not reason. Again, there are the Catholics, 
who believe not only the stories told in the 
Bible, but all such as are indorsed by the 
Church, either in mediaeval or modern times. 
Once more, there are the Swedenborgians, who 
accept the stories of their founder. They also 
believe in the possibility of spirit intercourse 
to-day, but hold it unwise if not dangerous. 
Then there are men like the late Professor Aus- 
tin Phelps of Andover, who " know " that 
spirits do interfere with human affairs, but 
believe that they are always evil spirits. Per- 
haps it is consistent with that theology which 
he represented, to believe that God will permit 
devils to overrun the earth, but forbid the good 
spirits to make their presence known. Such, 
then, are some of the points of view from which 
these matters have been regarded up to the 
time when they began to be approached in a 
rational and scientific manner. 

It is doubtless due to the experiments of 
Mesmer in France, and the Rochester rappings 
that the era of scientific psychical research has 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 129 

at last been reached. I do not at all mean to 
say that the former were the cause, in the 
ordinary sense of the word, of the latter. I only 
mean that mesmerism and spiritualism, with 
their allied phenomena, resulted at last in such 
a widespread and popular interest in the prob- 
lems involved as to lead certain people to feel 
that the question was worthy of serious atten- 
tion and ought not longer to be postponed. 
The attitude of Professor Henry Sidgwick of 
Cambridge, England, the great writer on ethics 
indicates what I mean. In his first address as 
president of the English Society for Psychical 
Kesearch, he declared it to be " a scandal " 
that a matter of so great importance, and in- 
volving the life interests of so many people, 
was not scientifically investigated and settled ; 
and the first time that so significant a thing 
ever occurred, Professor Oliver Lodge of Liver- 
pool, in his address as president of the Physi- 
cal and Mathematical Section of the British 
Association for the Advancement of Science, 

onlv last year, took similar ground, and chal- 

9 



130 PSYCHICS : FACTS AND THEORIES. 

lenged the attention and interest of the leading 
scientific men of Great Britain. 

Men had come to feel, in view of the fact 
that so many thousands uncritically accepted 
the claims of spiritualism on the one hand, and 
so many were hungry for a belief that their 
reasons forbade, on the other, that the truth, 
if possible, ought to be known. They saw 
that either thousands of people were deluded, 
and that it was worth while to help them out 
of their delusion, or that something was true 
which might comfort and help other thousands 
who stood helpless and hopeless in the presence 
of " the great mystery." It was out of such 
convictions that the movement for psychical 
research was born. 

Every little while, still, some presumably wise 
scientific man sneers at the whole thing, and 
treats the search as though it were on a level 
with the " Hunting of the Snark." A certain 
class of newspapers also treat it as though it 
were fair game for the jester's column, classing 
the " spook " and the sea serpent as equally 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 131 

legitimate prey for the limp-minded humorist 
of the " silly season." It will not therefore be 
time thrown away if we spend a little in con- 
sidering as to whether psychical research is 
really a rational scientific inquiry. 

There are two great universe theories, some 
variety of one or other of which we all hold. 
One is the materialistic theory, which teaches 
that in some way life is the outcome of matter, 
the product of organization. It is generally 
supposed to be the necessary consequence of 
this theory that the conscious life of the in- 
dividual ceases with the death of the visible 
body. I have not been quite able to see why, 
however, for there may be an invisible body ; 
and if matter is able to produce a conscious, 
thinking person, who is wise enough to say 
that this same matter may not be able to con- 
tinue the life in some invisible form ? For it 
seems to me that Thomas Paine did not at all 
exceed the bounds of reason when he said, " It 
appears more probable to me that I shall con- 
tinue to exist hereafter, than that I should have 



132 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

existence, as I now have, before that existence 
began." 

But whatever may be the truth of this, the 
old, crude theories of materialism are anti- 
quated, and " dead matter " is philosophically 
and scientifically unknown. The only mate- 
rialists to-day are a few belated survivals, fossils 
of a bygone period of human thought. Even 
Clifford, before he died, was talking of " mind- 
stuff " as connected with matter. Haeckcl, the 
nearest to a materialist of any great living 
thinker, must have his " atom-souls " in order 
to account for facts. Schopenhauer must have 
his " world-will," and Hartmann his " Uncon- 
scious " with a capital U. Huxley, though the 
inventor of the term " Agnostic," declares that 
sooner than accept the old materialism he could 
adopt the ultra-idealism of Bishop Berkeley. 
And Herbert Spencer, easily prince of them 
all, says that the one thing we know, more 
certainly than we know any isolated or individ- 
ual fact, is the existence of the one Eternal 
Energy back of all phenomena, and of which 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 133 

all phenomena are only partial manifestations. 
Materialism, then, is dead, and spiritualism 
(of course I am using the term philosophically 
now) is taking its place. This theory puts 
life hack of form, and makes it the cause, and 
not the product, of organization. This does 
not teach that man has a soul. That sort of 
talk belongs to the old theology : — 

" A charge to keep I have, 
A God to glorify ; 
A never-dying soul to save 
And fit it for the sky." 

If man is thought of as " having " a soul 
which he may " lose," it is but a step to think- 
ing of him as a being independent of his soul, 
and as getting along without it. This theory 
rather teaches that man is a soul, and has sl 
body ; and on that theory, it is purely a rational 
question as to whether he may not be able to 
get along without the present and visible body. 

And here we need to note to what an extent 
we are the fools of our eyes and ears. It is 
common to imagine that we can see all that is, 



134 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

if only it is near enough to us, and that we can 
hear all " sounds " that are not too far away. 
As matter of fact, it is only the very smallest 
part of the real world of things about us that 
we are able either to see or hear. Vibrations 
that reach a certain number in a second pro- 
duce an effect on the eye which, when trans- 
mitted to the brain is, in some way, quite in- 
comprehensible to us, transformed into vision. 
When these vibrations pass a certain other 
number in rapidity, then they lose the power to 
produce the sense of seeing. It is then only 
within very narrow limits that we see ; while 
on both sides of these limits there is a practical 
infinity that to us is invisible, though no whit 
less real than that which we speak of as seeing. 
And all the while it isn't the eye, nor the brain, 
nor any visible thing that sees even the com- 
monest object ; it is the I, the self, the soul 
only that ever sees. A precisely similar thing 
is true of hearing. 

It is not science, but only shallow sciolism 
that assumes that our present senses are a meas- 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 135 

ure of the universe. Men like Professor Crookes 
and Nicola Tesla are already on the eve of phys- 
ical discoveries that promise to reveal to us 
forms and conditions of matter quite unlike 
those with which we are already familiar. For 
anything at present known to the contrary, the 
soul or the self may emerge from the experi- 
ence we call death with a body as real and much 
more completely alive than the present visible 
body, and which shall yet be invisible, inau- 
dible, and intangible to our ordinary senses. 

Indeed " spirit photography," whether true or 
not, is not at all absurd or scientifically impos- 
sible in the nature of things. The sensitized 
plate can " see " better than the ordinary human 
eye, for it can photograph an "invisible" star. 
It may then photograph an invisible " spiritual 
body," provided any such body really exists. 

As to the possible existence of a " spiritual " 
world in the neighborhood of the earth, I need 
only quote Young, who lived not long after 
Newton, and who is the famous scientist who 
discovered and demonstrated the present uni* 



136 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

versally accepted theory of liglat. Jevons, in 
his " Principles of Science " (Third edition, 
Macmillan & Company, 1879), j)age 516, says, 
" We cannot deny even the strange suggestion 
of Yonng, that there may be independent worlds, 
some possibly existing in different parts of 
space, but others perhaps pervading each other, 
unseen and unknown in the same space." It 
is not scientific wisdom, then, but only scien- 
tific ignorance or prejudice that supposes that 
the student engaged in the work of psychical 
research, need apologize to science. There is 
nothing which his work pre-supposes that in 
any way whatever contradicts any established 
principle or verified conclusion of science. 

In the light of these facts, and considering 
the character and the learning of those engaged 
in the work, it is time that the silly attitude to- 
ward it were given up. The time is passing 
away when such a remark as the following should 
be possible. The Keverend J. G. Wood was a 
clergyman of the Church of England, and a 
world-famous naturalist. As the result of years 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 137 

of careful investigation, he became a firm be- 
liever in the " spirit " world, and in communi- 
cation between that world and this. Some years 
ago he was in Boston, giving a course of lec- 
tures before the Lowell Institute. In conver- 
sation with him at that time, he spoke freely of 
his experiences, and told me stories as wonder- 
ful as any I have ever heard. He said : a I do 
not talk about these things with everybody. 1 
used to think anybody who had anything to do 
with them was a fool, and " — he added with a 
look that told of frequent contact with the 
" unco " wise — " I do not enjoy being called a 
fool." It is time, I say, that this sort of thing 
were gone by. The wise man whose whole 
stock in trade on this subject is an ignorance 
only less than his prejudice, will soon learn that 
it is not entirely scientific to " know all about " 
a matter about which he really knows nothing 
at all. 

This, then, is a subject as fairly open to 
scientific investigation as is the germ theory of 
disease, or the present condition of the planet 



138 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

Mars. It is purely a question of fact and evi- 
dence. 

I had begun a careful study of these questions 
when as yet there was no English Society for 
Psychical Research. Before touching on the 
work that has been done, and the theories pro- 
pounded since that organization, I wish to say 
a few things concerning my own personal atti- 
tude. I do this, not because I imagine that 
my own motives and actions are of any public 
importance in themselves ; but in one way they 
may be of a good deal of importance to those 
who may be interested in the work I have done, 
and the conclusions I have reached in the 
matter of psychical study. If, in the case of 
the so-called exact sciences, — like the work of 
observation in astronomy, — the " personal equa- 
tion " has to be taken account of, much more 
is it necessary in studies like these, where ex- 
perience, power of exact observation, motive, 
and purpose may either practically assure or 
vitiate results. Since then I have ventured to 
lay before the public so large a number of 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 139 

cases, my readers have a right to know so much 
of my personal attitude and methods as will 
help them to estimate the value of these cases. 

My evangelical training had prepared me to 
look upon all these things with suspicion. I 
believed the whole business to be either fraud 
or delusion or " nerves." I do not think I 
traced it to the devil, as so many others did, 
but I felt sure that it had "better be let alone." 
I felt towards it as all the "respectable" people 
of Jerusalem and Corinth and Rome felt towards 
Christianity — that at best it was "a pestilent 
superstition." On the basis of " invincible 
ignorance," I once delivered a scathing lecture 
against it, and perhaps wondered a little that 
certain obstinate people still continued to be- 
lieve in it after I was done. 

But about seventeen years ago, a year or so 
after coming to Boston, the father of one of 
my parishioners died. Soon after she came to 
me, saying she had been with a friend to con- 
sult a a medium." As she thought, certain 
very striking things had been told her, and she 



140 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

wished my counsel and advice. Then it came 
to me with a shock that I had no business to 
offer advice on a subject concerning which my 
entire stock of preparation consisted of a 
bundle of prejudices. Then I began to reflect 
that this one parishioner was not alone in want- 
ing advice on this subject ; and I said to my- 
self, whether this be truth or delusion, it is 
equally important that I know about it so as 
to be the competent adviser of those who come 
to me for direction. I should have felt ashamed 
to have had no opinion on the Old Testament 
theophanies or the New Testament stories of 
spirit appearances or demoniacal possessions. 
Why should I pride myself on my ignorance 
of matters of far more practical importance to 
my people ? As a part of my equipment for 
the ministry, then, I said to myself, T must 
study these things until I have at least an in- 
telligent opinion. Such, then, were the cir- 
cumstances and motives that led to my pro- 
longed investigation. 

Since then I have improved every available 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND TREOBIES. 141 

opportunity to study these things. I have had 
no prurient curiosity as to any other possible 
world, neither have I made it my chief object 
to see if I could get into communication with 
personal friends. I have studied these phenom- 
ena, first, as bearing on the nature and powers 
of the mind, as here embodied, and then with 
a view to finding out if any proof could be ob- 
tained that personal, conscious existence sur- 
vives the experience we call death. For only 
a superficial knowledge of the drift of popular 
opinion is needed to show that if the belief in 
a future life is to continue as a life-motive 
among men, it must be based on something 
more recent and authentic than a shifting 
ecclesiastical tradition two thousand years old. 
The Catholic church is wise enough to see this. 
And the attitude of the Protestant church is a 
curiously inconsistent one, particularly when 
one remembers that the " facts " on which it 
relies are of precisely a similar kind to the 
modern ones it contemptuously rejects. 

In my studies I have sought faithfully to 



142 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

follow the scientific method, which I regard as 
the only method of knowledge. By careful 
observation and rigid experiment I have tried, 
first, to be sure that I have discovered a fact. 
Of this fact I have made a record at the time. 
I have paid no attention to results apparently 
obtained in the dark, or in circumstances where 
I could not be certain as to what was taking 1 

o 

place. I have not said that all these were 
fraud, but I have never given them weight as 
evidence. I have made a study of sleight of 
hand, and am quite aware of all the possibilities 
of trickery. But to imitate an occurrence, 
under other conditions, is not to duplicate a 
fact. The larger number of those occurrences 
which have actually influenced my belief have 
taken place in the presence of long-tried per- 
sonal friends, and not with professional " me- 
diums" at all. 

"When at last I have been sure of a fact, I 
have stretched and strained all known methods 
and theories in the attempt to explain it without 
resorting to any supposed "spiritual" agency. 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 143 

I say " spiritual " and not supernatural, for I 
do not believe in any supernatural. In my 
conception of the universe whatever is, is 
natural. If "spirits" exist, their invisibility 
does not make them supernatural any more 
than the atom of science is to be regarded as 
supernatural for a similar reason. And when 
at last I discovered facts which I am utterly 
unable to explain without supposing the pres- 
ence and agency of invisible intelligences, 
even then I have not positively taken that step. 
For the present, at least, I only wait. The 
facts will keep ; and if the wisdom of the world 
is able to discover any other explanation, I am 
quite ready to accept it. Stronger than my 
desire to conquer death is my desire not to be 
fooled, or to be the means, ever so honestly, of 
leading astray any who might put their trust 
in my conclusions ; but I have discovered facts 
which I cannot explain, and they seem to point 
directly to the conclusion that the self does not 
die, and that it is, in certain conditions, able to 
communicate with those still in the flesh. It 



144 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

may be proper to add here that the leading 
man in the English Society for Psychical 
Research, Mr. F. W. H. Myers, has published 
the fact that, as the result of his investigations, 
he has become convinced of " continued per- 
sonal existence and of at least occasional com- 
munication." The secretary of the American 
Branch of the English Society, Mr. Richard 
Hodgson, LL.D., has given to the world a 
similar conviction. 

It is time now for me to indicate certain 
results which I regard as well established. 
There will be no room here for detail. For 
illustration, and for cases other than those I 
have already given, the reader is referred to 
reports and books published by the English 
Society. What, then, are some of the results ? 

1. Mesmerism, under its new name of hyp- 
notism, is now recognized by all competent 
investigators. Not only this, but it is being 
resorted to in the treatment of disease by the 
best physicians of France, Germany, England, 
and America. It is found that it can be used 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 145 

in surgical operations as an anaesthetic, in place 
of ether. In the hypnotic state many strange 
phenomena sometimes appear, such as the dual 
personality, clairvoyance and clairaudience, that 
lead the student into other departments of 
psychical research. 

2. Clairvoyance and clairaudience are well 
established. This means that, in certain con- 
ditions, people can see without their eyes and 
hear without their ears. Facts like these do 
not take one " out of the body," but they do 
suggest, with somewhat startling force, the 
query as to whether the mind is necessarily so 
dependent on our ordinary senses as is com- 
monly supposed. 

3. Next comes telepathy, or mind reading. 

It is found that communication of thoughts, 

feelings, and even events in detail, is possible 

between minds separated by distances ranging 

from a few feet to thousands of miles. It is 

suggested that the explanation may be found 

in the theory of ethereal vibrations set up by 

the activity of the brain particles whose motion 

10 



146 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

accompanies all thought and feeling; but in an J 
case the facts are none the less wonderful. 

4. Next come what are ordinarily classed 
together as "mediumistic phenomena." The 
most important of these are psychometry, 
" vision" of "spirit" forms, claimed communi- 
cations, by means of rappings, table movements, 
automatic writing, independent writing, trance 
speaking, etc. With them also ought to be 
noted what are generally called physical phenom- 
ena, though in most cases, since they are 
intelligibly directed, the use of the word 
"physical," without this qualification, might 
be misleading. These physical phenomena 
include such facts as the movement of material 
objects by other than the ordinary muscular 
force, the making objects heavier or lighter 
when tested by the scales, the playing on 
musical instruments by some invisible power, 
etc. I pass by the question of " materialization," 
because I have never seen any under such con- 
ditions as rendered fraud impossible. I do not 
feel called on to say that all I have ever seen 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 147 

was fraudulent ; I only say that it might have 
been. Consequently, I cannot treat it as evi- 
dence of anything beyond the possible ingenuity 
of the professionals. 

Now all of these referred to (with the excep- 
tion of independent writing and materialization) 
I know to be genuine. I do not at all mean 
by this that I know that the " spiritualistic " 
interpretation of them is the true one. I mean 
only that they are genuine phenomena ; that 
they have occurred ; that they are not tricks or 
the result of fraud. I am not saying (for I 
must be very explicit here) that imitations of 
them may not be given by fraudulent "mediums" 
or by the prestidigitator; but that they are 
genuine phenomena, in many cases, I have 
proved over and over again. I ought to say a 
special word here in regard to slate writing. I 
put this one side, because I know it can be 
done in many ways as a trick. More than once 
have I detected a trick as being palmed off on 
me for genuine ; but it is only fair to say that 
I have had experiences of this sort when I 



148 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND TREOBIES. 

could not discover any trick, and in conditions 
where it seemed impossible. I leave it out of 
present account only because I do not feel 
justified in saying I know, as I do feel justified 
in saying in regard to most of the others. 

But a thousand experiences of these kinds 
may occur, and yet find a possible explanation 
without crossing the borders of the possible 
" spirit " world. Psychometry, visions, voices, 
table movements, automatic writing, trance 
speaking — all these may be accounted for by 
some unusual activity of the mind as embodied. 
They may throw great and new light on the 
powers and possibilities of the mind here, and 
yet not lead us to the land of " spirits." 

But — and here is the crucial point to be 
noted — by any one of these means a com- 
munication may be made that cannot be 
accounted for as the result of the mental activ- 
ity of any one of the persons visibly present. 
Was the statement made such as was known, 
or might ever have been known, by any of the 
(visible) persons present ? In that case, the 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 149 

cautious and conscientious investigator will feel 
compelled to hunt for an explanation on this 
side of the border. For since mind-reading is 
a known cause, he will resort to that as long as 
he can, and only go further when absolutely 
compelled to do so. But if none of the people 
(visibly) present ever knew or ever could have 
known the communicated fact, then what ? 

It seems to me that the Rubicon, whether 
ever crossed or not, is here. This, therefore, 
calls for clear discussion by itself ; but one 
other point, not yet sufficiently noted, needs to 
be disposed of first. When enumerating some 
of the phenomena called " mecliumistic," I re- 
ferred to the movement of material objects in 
a way not be explained by muscular force, and 
to musical instruments played on by some in- 
visible power. Is there any way to account for 
these without supposing the presence and 
agency of some invisible intelligence ? I 
frankly confess I do not know of any; and 
here let me refer to the opinion of Dr. Elliott 
Coues. For years he was connected with the 



150 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND TUEOEIES. 

Smithsonian Institution in AYashington ; and 
a professor there is a personal friend of mine. 
He is, if not a materialist, an out and out 
agnostic. I asked him one day as to the scien- 
tific standing of Professor Coues, leaving out of 
account what he regarded as his " vagaries " 
in connection with psychical matters. He re- 
plied that he was " one of the ablest and most 
brilliant scientific men in Europe or America." 
Professor Coues then has said — I quote from 
memory — " All material objects are under the 
power of gravity. If, then, any particle of 
matter, though no larger than a pin's head, be 
moved in such a way as not to be explained by 
purely physical forces, this fact marks the bound- 
ary line between the material and the spiritual, 
between force and will." 

But now for a brief consideration of the most 
important psychical cases with which I am ac- 
quainted. More than once I have been told 
by a psychic (and in the most important cases 
of all the psychic was not a professional) cer- 
tain things that neither the psychic nor myself 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AXD THEORIES. 151 

knew, had known, or (in the nature of the 
case) could by any possibility ever have known. 
These communications claimed to come from 
an old-time and intimate friend who had 
u died " within three months. The facts were 
matters which mutually concerned us, and 
which she would have been likely to have 
spoken of if it were possible. There was an 
air of naturalness and verisimilitude about the 
whole experience, though some parts of it were 
so "personal" as to render it impossible to 
publish the whole case, and so make it as forc- 
ible to others as it was to me. 

Now, will somebody tell me what I am to do 
with facts like these ? In one or two cases 
the facts communicated to me concerned 
happenings, mental conditions, and spiritual 
suffering in another state, two hundred miles 
away- I wish to note briefly the ordinary at- 
tempts at explanation and see if they appear to 
be adequate. 

1. Guess-work ; coincidence; it happened so. 
This might be true of one case, however extra- 



152 PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 

ordinary ; but when you are dealing with sev- 
eral cases, the theory of guess-work or coinci- 
dence becomes more wonderful than the origi- 
nal fact. 

2. Clairvoyance. But my friend, the non- 
professional psychic, has no clairvoyant power; 
and, besides, clairvoyant power does not ordi- 
narily reach so far, nor does it deal with mental 
and moral states and sufferings. 

3. Telepathy. But this is based on sympathy 
between the two persons concerned, and deals 
with something in which they are mutually 
interested. But my friend, the psychic, not 
only was no friend of the parties concerned ; 
she did not even know that any such persons 
were in existence. 

4. As a last resort, it has been suggested 
that we are surrounded by, or immersed in, a 
sort of universal mind which is a reservoir con- 
taining all knowledge ; and that, in some mys- 
terious way, the psychic unconsciously taps this 
reservoir, and so astonishes herself and others 
with facts, the origin of which is untraceable 



PSYCHICS: FACTS AND THEORIES. 15a 

and unknown. But this seems to me explana- 
tion with a vengeance ! The good old lady, 
after reading " Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress" 
with " Scott's Explanatory Notes," said she 
understood everything except the notes. So in 
this case, it seems to me we might conceivably 
explain everything except the explanation. No, 
I must wait still longer. Unless my friend was 
there telling me these things, I confess I do no, 
know how to account for them. 

Here, then, for the present, I pause. Do 
these facts only widen and enlarge our thoughts 
concerning the range of our present life ? Or 
do they lift a corner of the curtain, and let us 
catch a whisper, or a glimpse of a face, and so 
assure us that "death" is only an experience 
of life, and not its end ? I hope the latter. And 
I believe the present investigation will not cease 
until all intelligent people shall have the means 
in their hands for a scientific and satisfactory 
decision. 



JUN 28 1302 



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